


Worse Than Enemies

by thesubparpirate



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World, Draco Malfoy-centric, HP: EWE, M/M, Manipulative Harry Potter, POV First Person, Post-War, some fluffy bits too though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-07-12 19:50:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 104,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7120093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesubparpirate/pseuds/thesubparpirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the war, Draco moved away from magic and started living with Muggles. But it wasn't easy to escape - especially when Saint Potter wouldn't let him get a moment's rest. Harry continues to worm his way into Draco's life, but when Draco gets attacked, it throws both their lives out of balance.</p><p>Permanent WIP - unfortunately I got side-tracked, and I don't think I'll be able to finish this anytime soon, sorry!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A little lonely, a little sad, with a definite need for more Dreamless Sleep

I could have run. I probably should have.  
Instead, I was here. And everything I’d achieved in life led me to this conversation in this restaurant on the busiest night of the week, maneuvering through tables and customers, wearing slacks and a white button-down loading four different dinner plates on my forearms.  
“I just can’t believe you’ve still never seen Star Wars.”  
“I don’t particularly want to. Ryan, I have to give these people their dinners, I can’t spend all night talking to you.”  
“You need to come over my place, I swear to god. We’ll have a marathon. This is blasphemy.”  
“I’m pretty busy this week.”  
“You say that every week.”  
“I’ll be back with another order before long. Don’t miss me too much.”  
It’s not that I dislike Ryan, per se; it’s just routine. I’m a creature of habit.  
Ryan was what the Muggles called a “nerd” nowadays. I wasn’t sure what it meant yet, but I thought it was bad. Apart from that, he was also a very talented chef, which is why I knew him.  
Did you think I owned this restaurant? You should've. I was a Malfoy, after all. And of course, this place was a five-star French bistro, with words on the menu you can’t pronounce unless you actually lived in Paris, overflowing with happy customers, all of whom were the crème de la crème themselves. Only the elites of society could frequent this place—we had a security guard here who turned people away at the door if their robes weren’t the absolute latest in high fashion. I spent my days chatting up superstars and runway models, all of whom threw themselves at my feet. Brilliant, talented, wealthy and handsome, I was universally adored by everyone who mattered. I had a flat with ten different rooms and one of the best views in London and two different walk-in closets. I was so rich I didn’t wash my clothes; I just threw them out when they become dirty. My boyfriend was a professional athlete and part-time model with a six-pack and the sharpest jaw line I’d ever seen. The sex was phenomenal and we’d done it in a record-breaking amount of different places. When we wanted warm weather we’d apparate to our vacation home in Monte Carlo, where we laid on the beach and drank champagne while watching the sunset. Everything was exactly how it was supposed to be.  
If only, right?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was a coward. And now this was when I finally stood up and tried to be brave. Too late, like always.  
A lot of my family’s money was confiscated. My father was imprisoned. I don’t like to talk about it.  
Mother got a much lighter sentence, thankfully. The idea that Father forced us to follow him on his path of destruction worked in our favor, but really, it was Harry who convinced the Wizengamot. She was free to do what she pleased, as long as she didn't set foot in the wizarding world of the the United Kingdom again. She moved to France. I went with her, for a while.  
She wanted to live in Paris, but what funds we had left that weren’t seized by the Ministry weren’t enough to support a flat in the Wizardng parts of the city, and though Mother wasn't quite as prejudiced as Father, she still shuddered at the thought of living with Muggles. At least outside of the city she could have her own personal space, so she wasn't shoved in a building with so many neighbors. Convincing her to do so was a small form of damage control on my part.  
Mother never really had to work before. She had the right contacts, though, so she was able to find an in eventually. The job she has now wasn't ideal, but it paid well enough, she got treated fairly, and most importantly, it was not Muggle.  
I could have worked with her, I suppose. I could have stayed and lived with her and worked in France—she made sure I spoke the language. I could have ignored everything that happened here.  
I’d like to think that deciding not to go was mature, but in retrospect it was probably just reckless guilt-fueled masochism and self-preservation. I needed to figure myself out. Much as I love her, I couldn’t do that with her still around.  
It could have been worse. At least I don’t live in the wizarding world anymore.  
Once I knew mother was going to be fine, I left her and returned. It only took a few people spitting at me and a terrifyingly unbalanced scuffle in the close behind Madam Malkins to realize that I was very much unwelcome, not that I expected much more. Honestly, I don’t think I would have left the Manor to do any of this if the government hadn’t seized that, too. Which, truth be told, is just as well—living there, I’m certain, would have driven me insane with all the dark memories lurking in its shadows.  
I made a decision. For the first time in my life, it was just me. I had no one’s crushing expectations riding on my shoulders, only the burden of immense hatred. People I’d never met before would walk up to me and disparage me, if not worse, because I was so recognizable.  
It’s not like I could help being a Malfoy. But then, none of the Muggles and Muggle-borns the Dark Lord killed could help what they were either. If this was to be my retribution, it still wasn’t as bad as what they suffered.  
I decided to leave, completely. And so I disappeared.  
It wasn’t easy. I had a lot of mental breakdowns, a lot of panic attacks. I didn’t even know how to go about renting a flat, when I first struck out.  
I found a newspaper in the trash and rifled through it, but all the ads kept asking to message something called a “mobile”. I spent the entire day just wandering around the city, looking for “for rent” signs.  
Sleeping on a park bench was a very humbling experience. Not a very restful one, though. I learned to sleep in a different park every day, or else I’d attract some very unwanted attention. On days the weather was too cold or too rough, Pansy let me sleep at her place. She always tried to make me stay, but I never would.  
I found my way eventually. Learned what a damn telephone is, at least, and figured out how to call one from the payphones on the street. I live in what’s not the safest of areas, but for my pay grade, it was all I could afford. I’m still not doing too much better, but it’s a living.  
I needed a lot of things in order to get hired anywhere. Some sort of number. Papers. Identification cards. None of which I had, nor had any idea of how to obtain.  
During those nights where I felt so completely unqualified and alone I thought about returning to France. But some stubborn part of me dug itself into the earth and quietly reminded me that was not an option. I had helped overrun this place. This was where I needed to stay. These were the people I hurt. The people I hunted. The people I hated, for so long. It made sense that this is where I should live. If I was going to be miserable, I may as well go the whole way.  
Plus, I couldn’t stay in the wizarding world, not if I wanted to stay free. I might have been able to roam around without restrictions, but I was on parole.  
What, you didn’t actually think I was being noble, did you? You should know by now, Malfoys aren’t noble. We’re cowards. One reckless hex, even in self-defense, and I’d be in Azkaban rotting in the cell next to my Father’s. I’ve never been good at letting things go, and I’m self-aware to recognize that anger is my default as a defense mechanism. That, mixed with the animosity shown to me by all my peers—former Death Eaters and innocent civilians alike, because if there is one thing I’m good at, it is making enemies—would brew something much too toxic to tolerate for very long.  
We were cowards, but at least we were smart about it. Usually.  
My neighborhood was sketchy. I know that. It’s how I found Tom.  
Tom was a forger. Naturally, Tom was most certainly his real name. I didn’t know what Tom’s name actually was. What I did know about him is this: He moved. Wherever I first found him was not where he was now. He was paranoid, but that was probably how he afforded those shoes without getting shot by one of his sketchy former customers. He was skinny, and twitchy, and his hair was shaved so close to his head I could see the pink of his scalp. He smelled like sweat. He was the kind of person whose presence makes people check their wallets.  
He gave me a number. He gave me an identification card. He gave me no questions.  
None came cheap. Especially the absence of questions.  
Armed with ability but painfully short on money, I went to every single department store, café, and restaurant that was hiring. I still dressed nicely and carried myself well, despite the lack of sleep and extreme levels of stress. It got people’s attention. And I kept it. I’ve always been a very talented liar.  
Now I had a job, at least. Again, it didn't pay the best, but it was enough. It was at a restaurant as a waiter, and my breaks were so short they just let me eat in the restaurant for free, so that was at least one meal I got every day. The rest of what I made went into rent and cheap groceries. And paying off what I owed Not-Tom, the ghost of loans past.  
It was a life. One that I could lead in semi-dignity. My flat was tiny, a dingy thing with one room and a miniscule bathroom hardly big enough for myself. At least I still had my wand, so it was obsessively clean. If Slytherin common room taught me anything it was how to case a strong heating charm, so I didn't need to pay that, either.  
It was not glamorous, and it was exhausting, but I managed. I worked during the afternoon, evening, and a bit into the night. In the morning before my shift I laid around reading library books. I wasn't exactly a paragon of social status anymore, but it was better this way. I’d been living like this for a few years, now, and nobody knew who I used to be. I had friends, yes, or I suppose friendly acquaintances would be a better word. All Muggle. Mostly, all my coworkers. They thought I was quiet when I first started working, shy. I was damaged, certainly, but not that. Never that. I was hateful, and bitter, and angry. But they don’t need to know that. Shy looks better on me anyway. Anger makes people sloppy—that’s something my father used to say to me often. And though I never took it to heart as a child, I’ve had to employ that advice frequently.  
At first, everything annoyed me. But being perpetually irritated is exhausting, and though I had the money to afford that sort of stamina in my younger years, I no longer had it after the war. I had a lot of bitterness that I had to let go of. I’m not good at letting go, so for the most part I just squashed it down or shunted the blame elsewhere. On my father. On my mother. On myself, especially. But I couldn’t put it on the Muggles, not anymore. Not after seeing what we did to them. Not after living with them.  
Everyone from my past was completely gone, including, I like to think, a large bit of the person I used to be. Funny, how a little slip-up like publically supporting a universally feared genocidal maniac can make someone fear attention instead of crave it.  
I stayed largely unnoticed, and that’s how I liked it. Until I saw her, that is.  
What the hell was she doing in a Muggle library?  
“Draco Malfoy?”  
Bloody hell.  
Luna Lovegood.

When I started working, I realized I literally had nothing to talk about to any of my coworkers. I couldn’t make simple conversation if I didn’t know any of their references. Who is Jack and why can’t he let go? Why do so many people want to know why some Jenny girl doesn’t love them and where exactly is Forrest running to? Why do Muggles have so many misconceptions about vampires? (They don’t sparkle. I just had to tell Sophie that when I heard her conversation—another one of my coworkers. I don’t know where she got that absurd notion. The one I met just look kind of grey and sullen all the time, probably because Father wouldn’t let him eat me.)  
I decided that I would figure this out, and so I found the nearest library. I’m not all just good looks, you know. I was second in my class, beat only by Granger. Brilliant and beautiful. If not more than a bit jealous. I wanted to be the best, not runner-up. That and the fact that The Boy Who Lived, otherwise known as “Draco, I can’t understand how you and Harry Potter have not become friends yet. It should not have been difficult, even with your house differences. You are a Malfoy” picked her over me did not endear me to her. (Fat lot of good my father’s advice did me. But then, I always did what he asked. Blindly, it seems clear to me now.)  
I did not stop to consider that I was actively researching Muggles. If I had, I would have been swept up in the prejudice I’d been force-fed my whole life. I tried to look at it objectively. And once I did, after many trials and many errors, I discovered a whole different world.  
I scoffed at Dickens’ pretentiousness (before rather sheepishly checking myself). I smirked at Oscar Wilde’s biting sense of humor—a man after my own heart. Unoriginal though it was, I swooned over Heathcliff. Unbeknownst to Ryan, I devoured the Lord of the Rings.  
I bought an old beat-up television secondhand, and became Friends with Joey, Ross, Pheobe, Monica, Rachel, and Chandler. I awed at the sheer ability of Muggles as I watched the Titanic leave port, fell in love with Jack as Rose did, and cried when the movie ended (I most certainly didn’t sob uncontrollably for hours). Molly Ringwald became the heroine of my many solitary evenings, and once I’d watched everything that even so much as thought of starring her, I started on everything Leonardo DiCaprio had ever considered.  
So, I was a bit of a shut-in. You would be too, if you’d gone through half as much as I did. After everything I went through, I deserved it. Though I know what I truly deserved was a cold cell in Azkaban and nothing else. I got a cat to keep me company, at least. I got her from the rescue shelter. She’s black and white with a little starburst on her chest and has a chunk of her ear missing. I named her Clawedette, but I call her Etty for short. She has her cat food, but I also smuggle bits of meat from the kitchens for her. We cuddle. We are adorable.  
I’m not quite sure how Luna and I became friends. To be honest, I don’t remember much about our first meeting after the war, in that lobby in the library. I learned later she’d been there checking out a few books she thought could tell her more about a gargantuan furry waxlpux, which apparently Muggles have glimpsed and recorded but never been able to study (“The ones who’ve seen it try to tell the other Muggles, but their claims are usually discarded as insane. Isn’t that tragic?”).  
Out of everyone I hurt, strangely, she was one of my biggest regrets—maybe because of how I know her now. I used to be jealous of her as well, but it was a more complicated monster than the jealousy I felt with Granger.  
I wished I could be as brave as her. She never cared about what anyone thought, even if people tore her down, myself included. She was weird and socially inept and she knew it and didn’t care. I cared about everything. I cared about what everyone thought. I was so fearful of letting anyone down that I disappointed everyone. Not good enough for Dumbledore and his Order, not bad enough for the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. I made a façade of myself, one that looked competent, collected, confident, but it was all fake, and it all collapsed when the war really hit hard.  
I tried to do what I could for her when she was trapped in the dungeon underneath the Manor without getting us both killed. I snuck her food when nobody was looking, sent the elves to slip her sleeping potions I brewed myself. It was difficult, what with the darkest evil wizardkind had ever seen living under my roof, but as I have already said, of my many talents, my greatest is lying.  
I stumbled over a botched and stilted apology, wanting to get the words out but not knowing how. It seems that when it comes to expressing anything meaningful, my talent with words escapes me. She didn’t need it, though.  
She said she knew. And she said she forgave me. Right there, in the library lobby, with Muggles all around, my tattered coat around my shoulders and the books I’d been carrying on the floor. It would have been so easy for her to ridicule me. To tear me apart. I know I would have, if the positions were reversed. Somehow, her kindness was harder for me to bear. I hadn’t been expecting it.  
I ran away and cried in a bathroom stall until my head was pounding and my cheeks were itchy from the salt left behind. I splashed water on my face to clear up the red that had crept into my completion and tried to wipe the red out of my eyes. She was sitting on the steps outside, waiting for me.  
I hesitated when I saw her back, long blonde hair trailing on the ground. She motioned for me to sit down next to her, and I did, unsure of myself.  
“The wrakspurts are particularly nasty this time of year,” she said, staring into the distance. She turned and looked me directly in the bloodshot eye, a knowing smile on her face. “They make people’s allergies act up. If you put a mint leaf in your pocket, they’ll leave you alone.”  
I know she knew it wasn’t allergies.

Sometimes, after that, we’d sit together if we saw each other at the library.  
I was lonely. I think she must have been, too.

I invited her to coffee. I figured if I was going to sit anywhere, it may as well be comfortable. I just got a small coffee, two sugars and cream like always. She got a veritable monstrosity, white chocolate mocha with almond milk, whipped cream, and a caramel swirl. I’ve always had a sweet tooth, but not even I would be able to stand something like that.  
I paid for her. I paid for all her coffee, all the time. It was the least I could do.  
Every Wednesday we went together for lunch, and every time she got something more appallingly sweet than the last one. At one point she just began to try to get a reaction out of me. But it worked, so really, I couldn’t say anything. And she always drank it, no matter what it was, which said something about her fortitude. 

“I can braid that, if you’d like,” I told her one day.  
“Hm?”  
“Your hair. It’s always trailing on the ground, whenever we sit. It must get dirty.”  
“Yes, but it’s no worse than what the flibberng kealzewups do.” She says such absurdities with a half-smile. She’s much smarter than most people think, much smarter than I ever thought at school. When she says odd things like that to me, she’s half making fun of herself, half making fun of me. It’s a strange mix of seriousness and sarcasm that colors her tone. It’s one of the things I’ve learned I like most about her. That, and her insane capacity for forgiveness.  
“Ah. Of course.”  
She didn’t let me braid her hair then, but she did the next time I mentioned it, a few weeks later. She was my friend, however reluctantly I used the word. I wouldn’t have her looking like she dragged her hair through mud.  
I learned how to braid when I was in Hogwarts. Having Pansy as a best friend made that certain skill essential. Her hair wasn’t always so short, especially when she didn’t have the time to get it cut towards our final years. She couldn’t tolerate seeing the split ends—she would pick at them all through our classes. At her insistence, I braided her hair back instead. It calmed both of us down. I was jumpy and anxious, and having something to do with my hands relaxed me. She was isolated and craved attention, which I can relate to as well.  
We would meet more often, but I don’t want to be seen with her too much, so we limited our rendezvous to once a week. She refused to leave the wizarding world and I knew her previous closeness with me destroyed her reputation, even though her family was never a part of the Death Eaters. I didn’t want her to continue suffering because of me. And we both had things to work out by ourselves, on our own time.  
Don’t get me wrong—Pansy was my lifeline. During the really hard times she was the only thing that kept me alive. I might have frozen to death on a park bench if not for her. I might have given up hope if not for her. But she was so stubborn, she’d bring me back from the dead just to kill me again if I ever did anything like that. She believed in me even when the rest of the world didn’t, even when I myself didn’t. I owed her much more than I think she could understand.  
Look at me now. I was twenty-one years old, working as a waiter. Living in a one-room flat in a Muggle apartment building, braiding Loony Lovegood’s hair while having coffee. A little lonely, a little sad, with a definite need for more Dreamless Sleep. It’s certainly better than the future I thought I’d have during the war, which was, at best, death. But it’s absolutely not the restrictive traditional pureblood lifestyle I’d always assumed I’d be living.  
Maybe that’s not as horrible as I thought it would be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	2. Apologies

‘Take this.”  
“What is it?”  
“Jasmine.”  
“I don’t need a plant, Loony.” I didn’t call her that in seriousness anymore. It slipped out on one of our first coffee dates while I was ogling at her latest creation, and even though I didn’t mean it cruelly I was mortified. She laughed at me instead, told me I could call her it. She said that she’s decided to take it as a name for herself, because once she claims the title, nobody can use it against her. I wish I had the courage to follow her lead. I’d been called some choice names that I really wouldn’t like to claim ownership of. “My apartment only has one window, and it’s tiny. It’ll wither.”  
She hadn’t seen my apartment, and I wasn’t going to show her. It really was quite pathetic.  
“Not if you use the charm I told you about.”  
“The one for nargles?”  
“No, the one to simulate photosynthesis.”  
“Ah. Yes.” I still didn’t reach for the Jasmine.  
“Take it, Draco.” I think I rubbed off on her sometimes. Either that or she wasn’t as naïve as she portrayed, which could also very well have been the case. She used my first name when she tried to persuade me to do things. I think she figured out that very few people my age ever used it. My stupid sense of pureblood decorum—as well as that of most of my friends—meant that we usually called each other by our last names. Crabbe, Goye, Zabini, Nott. Malfoy. Pansy was an exception, but that’s because she was Pansy. She was always an exception.  
Knowing what she was doing usually persuaded me in the opposite direction, because I was ornery and stubborn.  
But then she said, “The scent of it helps with my nightmares. I believe it’ll help with yours, too.”  
I was too tired to act offended. If I’m being truthful, I was just happy she noticed. The thing about wearing the façade all the time is that I was in constant confliction: I wanted people to believe the mask. I wanted people to see through the mask. I wanted to be stoic and intimidating—I wanted to scream and run and cry huddled up in the fetal position. I’ve balanced being two different people for pretty much my entire life, and it was finally tearing me asunder. Knowing I didn’t have to pretend for her gave me a kind of relief sometimes Pansy couldn’t even offer.  
“Thanks, Luna.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was alone most of the time, save for the weekly coffee dates with Luna, the dinners with Pansy, and the occasional owl from my mother or ever rarer visit to my father. I knew I should have visited him more, but the place scared me, and it hurt me to see him the way he was, though I was sure he was hurting much worse than me.  
Pansy worried about me. I tried not to keep secrets from her—I had enough secrets to last a lifetime. I decided to try a policy of honesty, with a good number of white lies thrown in for my own protection. About what I’d been eating, about how I’d been sleeping, about how Pansy’s latest shade of lipstick looked. No use getting my head bitten off for nothing, especially if doing so might smear such an atrocious shade of fuchsia on me. Dark red and wine shades were more suitable dramatic colors for my complexion.  
“I’m alright, Pans. Really.”  
“See, it’s that kind of response that concerns me,” she says, spearing a cherry tomato. “Where are the dramatics? Where’s the sighing, the moping, the ‘It’s too horrible, Pans, I can’t bear to continue!’?”  
I laugh a little. “I was never that theatrical.”  
“No, you were worse. Melodramatic, the definition of.”  
“I suppose I was, wasn’t I?”  
“You climbed a tree to get Potter’s attention.”  
“I nearly ripped my trousers doing it, too.”  
“That would have been a much better spectacle, in my opinion.”  
I snorted into my pasta.  
“Come on, babe. I know something must be bothering you. How will we go on if we have nothing to gossip about?”  
“Well, when you say it like that, darling, we must absolutely discuss the plebeians,” I grinned at her. “Though, actually, I’m a bit worried about Not-Tom. He was looking for his payment the other day, this one early. Said he needed his money fast.”  
“Not worried for him, surely?” Jealousy was a virtue we had in common, though hers was the more territorial sort. She wouldn’t be happy to learn that I’d made friends with someone as skeevy as Not-Tom, not that I had.  
“No. I’m just worried he’s going to ask for the rest all in a lump sum, which I don’t have. Thank you again for spotting me tonight, I wouldn’t have asked, but I didn’t want to stand you up.”  
“You never need to thank me, darling. Your lovely face is payment enough. You do have wards up around your door, don’t you?”  
“Yes. I’m going to put some protection and confundus charms on it too, just in case. That should keep him occupied enough to forget about me.”  
“You can do that within the bounds of your probation?”  
“Well, it’s not like I’m charming him. I just put it on my door. If he happens to go up to it, that’s his problem.”  
She nodded and mumbled something of agreement around her pasta. Much like myself, she seemed to be trying to throw off our training, though not as dramatically. Perhaps I still had some sense of melodrama in me. Pansy started off rebelling by eating whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, however she wanted—no proper table manners for her, no sir, not if she didn’t want to. And, of course, she wasn’t letting her parents arrange her marriage. Not that there were too many purebloods left who still practiced that custom openly, after the Dark Lord.  
“Come out tonight with me.”  
“I have a hot date with Leo again tonight.”  
“He is dashing, for a Muggle. But you can see him any time. You can’t go to le Marais with me just any time.”  
“Le Marais?” She knew just how to get me. I loved that place. It was one of the oldest sections of Paris, and it used to be kind of a rough area until it was gentrified. I loved the park within it, and the boutiques have clothes that are just to die for. The nightlife was some of the wildest I’d been to, but then, it was also notoriously known as the gay quartier, so I was more than a bit biased. It was also right next to Metro Bastille and a massive amount of cheap student restaurants, which was perfect when I found myself wandering the streets drunk at four in the morning and could really use a kebab.  
“I know it’s your favorite neighborhood. There’s a portkey we can apparate to that’ll take us just outside Paris.”  
I groaned. “You shouldn’t exploit my weakness.”  
“I wouldn’t be a Slytherin if I didn’t.” She flashed me a wicked grin and I barked a laugh. “C’mon, Draco. Let’s see how many guys we can convince into buying us free booze. I know how you love getting them to buy you things and then ditching them—you’re my favorite partner in crime. You won’t have to spend a penny, I promise.”  
“When you tempt me like this, how can I refuse?”  
Her smile was as sharp as her nails and I was wearing an identical one. It had been far too long since I had a good time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Luna, you didn’t.”  
“I did.”  
All I could do was shake my head at her, mute with disbelief. “You did not.”  
“In fact…I did.”  
“How did he react?”  
“Oh, you know. It was actually quite mild. He made a lot of the same sorts of expressions you’re making right now. Then he got very concerned for my safety, and then he yelled a bit.”  
I nodded. “I don’t blame him.”  
“You’re not a threat to my safety. You only have two fluttersparts in your hair right now.”  
“This is a serious conversation.”  
“Oh I know. If it wasn’t they wouldn’t be here at all.”  
“Hm.”  
“He didn’t yell for very long, though. He only ever really yelled fifth year. It’s not a good habit. After he was done he was very curious about you.”  
“About me?”  
She raises an eyebrow. “Do you not remember how obsessed he was with you?”  
“He just thought I was up to something.”  
“He was still very obsessed.”  
“I mean, he was right, so he had just cause to be.”  
“Not now, though.”  
“No, not now. What did you say?”  
“I told him you were well. And that he should talk to you himself.”  
“Loony Lovegood, that is a terrible thing to suggest.”  
“Many of the best things in life do start off terrible,” she told me sagely as she sipped a strawberry something with something and something on top.  
“My relationship with the Boy Who Lived started terribly, continued terribly, and ended terribly. I’d like to leave it in its terrible grave.”  
“You were obsessed with him too if I recall. Maybe more so than him.”  
I scoffed. “Saint Potty? Me? Never. I was just the only one who dared to challenge him.”  
“Yes. Because Slytherins are known for their daring. Have I got your colors mixed up this entire time? Because I could have sworn they were green and not red.”  
“I can be brave when I want to.”  
“Oh I’m not challenging that,” she smiles at me. “I know you can be. Gryffindors, however, think to be brave first, and then think about what they want after. Or at least the ones I’ve met do.”  
“Hm.”  
“You don’t have to tell me you think that philosophy is bullshit, I see it on your face. But I wanted you to know that he knows we’re friends, in case you feel someone lurking around you.”  
“I really doubt the Savior of the wizarding world lurks. And I didn’t realize he was so invested in acting as your trained monkey.”  
“He worries for his friends. That’s not such a strange thing to do. I know you do it, though you still halfheartedly try to convince me you have a black void for a heart. And he’s always been prone to do strange things around you, Draco. Lurking, in my opinion, seems one of the more benign possibilities.”  
“Hm.”  
“How is the Jasmine doing?”  
“I water it every day.”  
“And the nightmares?”  
“Still there, but less now. Thank you.”  
“Good.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I saw him at the library. I go there every Thursday to pick up and return things, so I think Luna tipped him off to where I’d be. I need to try to be less predictable, otherwise I might start getting even more unwanted attention from people in my past life, many of whom don’t have the same moral fortitude as Saint Potty.  
We locked eyes as I walked down the large staircase on the way out. He was sitting on the bench next to them, knowing full well this was the only exit patrons could take.  
I took a deep breath, forced my eyes forward, and kept walking. I wasn’t about to destroy the bit of peace I’d made for myself by dredging back up some childish feud, even if Potter did get my blood boiling.  
I don’t know what it was I saw in his face. Surprise? Suspicion? Derision? I don’t know. Maybe all three. Knowing Potter, it probably was. I told myself I didn’t care.  
God, why couldn’t he just leave me alone. All of sixth year he trailed me. Seventh year he was off doing Merlin knows, and once I left Hogwarts for good, I’d hoped I’d left Potter with it. No such luck.  
I’ve already been shunned from my society. Why did he have to follow me out of it, too? Hadn’t he done enough already? What did he want?  
I didn’t care. I didn’t care. I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to speak to him. I wasn’t even going to acknowledge him.  
I glanced over my shoulder when I made it through the double doors and released a breath. He hadn’t followed me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next week he was there again. The week after I went on Friday trying to avoid him, and I was successful. But the week after that, when I returned on an equally random day, there he was again. When I saw him from the top of the stairs I couldn’t help but scoff. Had he decided to come here every evening? Why? I heard something about him joining the Aurors from Luna. Did he think I was involved with something? That was preposterous—I hadn’t even been near Wizarding London in more than three years.  
He looked up from the newspaper he was reading when he heard me, echoing in the lobby. I decided I might as well approach him. It’s not like he was being subtle.  
“Potter,” I said curtly.  
“Malfoy.”  
“Why are you here?”  
“I, ah.” He paused, glaring, but his eyes were slightly unfocused. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he didn’t want to look me in the eye. “Research.”  
I raised an eyebrow. “Research? At a Muggle library?”  
“Yes.”  
I paused for a moment, letting my skepticism sink in. “Well then. Don’t let me hinder you.” Before he could say anything else I walked away without a backward glance.  
Research my ass. He must have thought I was up to something. Well, I wasn't. Saint Potty could shove it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You’ve seemed a little stressed lately.”  
“I know, Pans. I’m sorry.”  
“Is it Not-Tom?”  
“No, it’s not him.” I sighed. “It’s Potter.”  
“Potter?”  
“Yeah, he’s following me.”  
Pansy’s expression was dark. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”  
“I know I haven’t! But once a Death Eater, always one, I suppose. I know he’s been involved in the Aurors. They probably let him skip training, even, because of who he is. So he can stalk suspicious characters all day if he wants.”  
“You’re not, though. You’ve been gone from the wizarding world for years now!”  
“Maybe that’s why he’s trailing me. Maybe he thinks I’m plotting some sort of dramatic reappearance.”  
She scoffed. “That’s absurd.”  
“My thoughts exactly.”  
She looked brooding and foreboding for the rest of our meal. I would like to say I only told Pansy because I was trying to mull over my situation, and in part I was. But a larger part of me knew that though Pansy might somewhat resemble a pug (a very cute one, I maintain), she’s much more like a bulldog. And a mean one.  
I didn’t know what exactly I was up against, if anything. It felt good to have insurane, meager though it was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Luna wasn’t answering my phone calls, so I had a plan for the next time I saw Harry, if he was still there. And I knew he would be.  
He expected me to follow the same sort of trajectory we always used to. Big words, snarky comments, a few scathing insults, maybe a kick to the face or two. He expected me to be angry, biting, spiteful. So I decided to throw him off. His reaction, depending on what it was, would probably help me glean some information on why he was here. Plus I didn’t want to get kicked out of the library—I practically lived there. No need to ruin my relationship with the staff.  
It wasn’t lying, exactly, but it wasn’t what I really wanted to show. Not that I knew what that was. With him, I’d always felt another bizarre concoction of emotions.  
Tragically, it seemed with me, nothing was simple.  
Being alone so much helped me go over my emotions and my reactions to them. It helped me study myself, which is one subject I sorely ignored (despite being nearly flawless in both body and mind) for the sake of survival.  
When we were little, I believe, I started hating Potter because he hurt me. We had gotten along fine, before the Weasel showed up. After that, he was very rude. Granted I was rude as well, but nobody had ever treated me like that. Mother had always spoiled me and Father, though rigid and often cold, was never insulting. On the rare occasions I was reprimanded, I was told exactly why and exactly what I should have done instead. Harry blatantly rejecting me, with no reason other than the (at the time, in my mind) totally unacceptable excuse that he wanted to rub shoulders with blood-traitors…it confounded and frustrated me.  
Compound that with the fact that he seemed to wither into himself in the spotlight and never appreciated it for what it was. He even became seeker in his first year! And even worse, it was because of something I’d done. And no matter how many rules or how much of a git he was, he never seemed to get in trouble.  
Of course I was jealous. I was entitled and spoiled rotten. I can say with much certainty that the person I had become would despise the one I had been, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t make excuses for my former self. Only child syndrome is so much worse when you grow up in a wealthy household. I was a terror, but I didn’t know that. I thought I deserved everything good, others be damned. It was somewhere around fourth year that that jealousy became mixed with something I didn’t like to think about too much. It wasn’t grudging admiration, though that was there. That had been there since third year, when I realized he could make a full-blown Patronus, something I still can’t achieve. No, this was something different.  
I puzzled over the feeling, then I denied it, then I ignored it. I had more pressing matters to deal with than Potter, specifically that his arch nemesis was living in my house. Compared to Voldemort, I was never anything more than an annoyance. Knowing that in Fourth Year drove me crazy. Knowing that in Seventh Year made me wish I’d paid attention to all the glaring neon warning signs Harry had tried to shove in all our faces and run away when I had the chance.  
After the war, the only contact I had with him was when he returned my wand to me, right after he spoke for my mother and I during our trials. The conversation consisted of the muttered words “Here” and “Thanks” and nothing else. I left, determined to put the wizarding world—and my highly inappropriate but persistent crush on its Savior—in my past. My feelings, apparently, were not the only persistent things.  
Harry was on the bench when I left the library, like every week before. At this point he must have either been tracking me somehow—not with magic, because I set protective wards around myself, so it must’ve been with Muggle technology—or staking out that spot every day. I suspected the former.  
Today he kept his eyes glued to his newspaper, but I could tell by how tense his shoulders became that he knew I was coming. I decided to put my plan into action and sat next to him.  
“How’s the research going?”  
He glanced up at me. “Uh…Fine.”  
I leaned back and stared straight ahead. I closed my eyes briefly and slowly exhaled. For this to work, I needed to push down my pride, which is something I’ve never been good at.  
“Thank you,” I said. "For saving me from the Fiendfyre." I could see Potter’s head turn towards me out of the corner of my eye, so fast I was surprised he didn’t hurt himself. I had to pause again to get my next words out. “And I’m sorry. I…I was wrong.”  
“You were?” he asked, his eyes so wide the green in them was plainly visible. “You are?”  
I closed my eyes again and huffed a singular, self-deprecating laugh. “Yes, Potter. I was, and I am.”  
“Oh.”  
I waited.  
“I…actually, I wanted to apologize.”  
My eyes flew open. That was the farthest response from what I had been expecting.  
“You?” I asked. “What for?”  
“Sixth Year. In the bathroom. I…I didn’t know what it was, what it would do—”  
I raised my eyebrows, and he took a shuddering deep breath. “Look, I know this doesn’t make it better, but I didn’t mean—”  
“Do you think these two are on the same level?” I asked incredulously, amazed he was even still trying to apologize.  
“What?”  
“You and your friends were imprisoned under Malfoy Manor. I actively supported people who killed your friends. The man who killed your parents—who meant to kill you—was living in my house!” I was confused and honestly a little angry. He was equating all that to a few slashes?  
Granted, the pain was horrible. Nothing like the Cruciatus Curse, which I would find out about later. In comparison, Sectumsempra was practically benign. It was excruciating at first, but then once I started to lose enough blood, everything just went blurry. I’d felt like I was floating. It felt wonderful after holding on so tightly to just let everything go, but it hadn’t lasted.  
He shrugged, analyzing his shoelaces. “I don’t see how you had much of a choice.”  
“Oh?”  
“Your mother saved my life.” He was looking at me again. “Did you know that?”  
“No,” I replied. I hadn’t.  
“Well, she did. And you did, too.”  
“I just gave you my wand.”  
“There’s no just about that.”  
No, there wasn’t. My wand felt like a part of me. To be separated from it, especially in such a tumultuous environment, had left me feeling bare, weak and vulnerable. But I’d been calculating my odds of survival and reached the conclusion that they were overwhelmingly gloomy, so I had figured that if I was going to take a risk it might as well have been then and there, while I still had a pulse.  
I mulled that over.  
“Are you really sorry?” he asked me.  
“Yes.”  
“Not just about losing?”  
“Potter, even if the Dark Lord had won, I was a dead man. He’d never let me live after that stunt I pulled. So no, I’m most certainly not sorry he lost. Besides, I won. I got what I wanted.”  
A surprised smile tugged on his lips. “How do you figure?”  
“My goal was to survive. With my family intact.”  
He barked a cold laugh. “Sometimes, I felt like that was the only reason I was fighting, too.” I examined his face to see if he was joking, but he wasn’t. “I hated putting Hermione and Ron in danger. I wouldn’t have been able to go on if I’d lost one of them.”  
Ah, of course. Saint Potter, always so selfless. Can’t even fight for himself—he has to make it about his friends’ lives, naturally. But I never thought Potter had doubts. He’d always looked so confident. I told him so.  
“I wish I’d felt as confident as I looked,” he told me. I nodded, thoughtful.  
We could have talked for longer, probably, but I had to leave. My head was spinning and my thoughts were everywhere. This was too much information, and I was not prepared for it.  
Composing myself, I said “I have to go.” I meant it to be abrupt, but the words came out softer than I intended. Probably because even though I definitely needed to sort through everything by myself, I was torn.  
Would he be back again, now that he had really talked? Did I really want to talk to him again? I was still suspicious this might be some sort of trap, even though I doubted Potter had the capacity for that sort of scheming. The only thing I knew for absolute certain was that I wanted to see him again, and see him like this, without the insults or the taunts. And that was dangerous. That frightened me.  
“Oh,” he said. “Alright. Well…goodbye, then.” He sounded reluctant.  
I was on my feet but lingering. I wanted to stay, to scrutinize him, to try to see that boy I thought I knew. But I didn’t. “Goodbye.”  
I was almost out the doors before I heard my name. I turned, and he was walking towards me.  
“Would you…like to meet up again?”  
I was surprised, but regained my composure quickly. “You’re actually asking me this time, instead of stalking me?”  
His face burned bright red. “I, er—”  
“I’m…” I wanted to say yes, and the fact I wanted to frightened me enough to change my reply. “I don’t think that would be wise.”  
“Oh.” It can’t have been disappointment I heard in his voice. Whatever his Auror friends had wanted him to find out from me, he hadn’t gotten it, and he wasn’t going to. But, to my surprise, he didn’t push the subject.  
Talking seemed so tame, after so many years of clawing at each other’s throats. He was obviously up to something—he wouldn’t have come and had a civil conversation with me if he didn’t have ulterior motives. None of this was probably his decision. It was probably Kingsley. No need to get my hopes up.  
“Good bye, Potter.”  
I turned and walked away before he could answer. I didn’t look back.  
I told myself I didn’t want to, but it wasn't true.  
I'm a very convincing liar.  
  
  



	3. Crush

“How did that go, then?” Luna was drinking something with blackberries and lemon in it. It tinged her lips purple.  
“It was…different. He was different than I thought he’d be.”  
“And how did you think he’d be?”  
“Louder. More insulting.”  
“You know, Harry is actually a reasonable person, when you start a normal conversation with him.”  
“Oh, you can’t blame our rivalry all on me. You know how he was.”  
“Yes. He could never stand to see a bully get away with it.”  
I laughed, but I was preoccupied. If I hadn’t been stuck thinking about Potter, I’m sure I would have been able to think of a good retort. “I wasn’t really so horrible, I hope. Not towards the end, at least.”  
“Not towards the end, no. I still have one of the wrappers from the chocolates you used to sneak us.”  
“You don’t need to keep those, Loony. I’d rather you didn’t.”  
“I like it. It reminds me of what we’re capable of.”  
“Prejudice and cruelty?”  
“Kindness, in the face of immense pressure to do otherwise.” She looked up at me, over a new pair of round, reflective sunglasses. “You really changed quite a bit, you know. Evolution looks good on you.”  
I rolled my eyes, but didn’t deign to answer. “I know you’re the one who sicced him on me.”  
“I did no such thing. I simply mentioned I’d been spending time with you. And may have alluded to where we met, while potentially reveling you go there every week.”  
“Why would you do that, Luna? Do the Aurors think I’ve done something?” I wanted to be angry, but I wanted her friendship more. Loneliness made me more tolerant than anything else ever had.  
She blinked. “No, Draco. Harry’s not an Auror.”  
“He’s not?”  
“Nope. He went into training, but he needed a break. His PTSD hindered him too much to be reliable under pressure. Kingsley sent him away and told him he could try after a few years, but I don’t think Harry is going to.”  
“Oh. So what’s he doing now, then?”  
“He’s been traveling a little bit. He and I went to Bermuda because I convinced him scaly gnarlwags were causing the boat disappearances. Or maybe he was just humoring me.” She gave me a rueful smile. “He doesn’t really like traveling alone, though. Rom and Hermione just had Rose, so they’ve been terribly busy. I’m still running the Quibbler, and Neville’s greenhouse is having wonderful success—though, truthfully, I think that more has to do with him slaying Nagini than his fantastic botanical skills. Harry’s been taking the time off, mostly. He deserves it.”  
“But then why would he talk to me?” I still didn’t understand. This conversation was making everything cloudier, not clearing anything up.  
She shrugged. “It’s Harry, Draco. Maybe he felt bad about the bad blood between you two and wanted to fix it.”  
“Seems like a lot of trouble to go to, stalking me and all.”  
She waved a hand. “That’s Harry. He has to make things as difficult for himself as possible.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today was extremely busy at the restaurant. We were totally slammed. Ryan couldn’t get the plates out fast enough. All of our customers were sort of blending together, at this point, but I cast a little charm to remind me which table ordered what. Sophie and Ellie were here, as well, and the manager was calling some others to see if anyone wouldn’t mind coming in for an extra shift. On the upside, I was making bank from all the tips. I thought I could even be able to save up enough to pay off Not-Tom completely by the end of this month.  
He’d really been getting on my case lately, and it was making me nervous. I mean, I got it. He was generous. Three years is a long time to owe someone money, and the cost of what I bought off of him was huge. I was paying it off in installments. And even though Not-Tom was a criminal, he was not stupid. He knew I was reliable. He wouldn’t do anything to me, especially because I paid him extra each time for putting up with the wait. Or at least, that’s what I thought. But he’d been coming over to my flat, invading my space. Not doing anything explicitly threatening, but just his presence invites threat. And even though I have magic to defend myself, I’d really rather not have to go about running away and finding a whole other place to live.  
On top of it all, the stress from my real world problems made my nightmares even worse. So now, not only was the Dark Lord living it up in my apartment, ordering me around and threatening my family, he was doing so while Potter watched, waving newspapers at me.  
“Draco,” Sophie said to me, pulling me out of my head. “A guy just sat down at table three in your area.”  
“Thanks, Soph. I’ll be right there.” I dropped off a woman’s Cajun chicken and headed over. And then stopped.  
Of course it was him. Who the hell else would it be?  
I continued my stride and hoped he didn’t see me pause. I put on my best work smile and said in my waiter’s voice, “Hello. I’ll be your server this evening. Would you like something to drink?” I wouldn’t let him know his presence bothered me. He must’ve thought it was so funny, seeing Draco Malfoy wait on him after all our yeas of rivalry. I wasn’t ashamed of my job, but just having him here, putting me in this position, irked me. Not that I let it show. My mask of professionalism was flawless.  
His mouth opened, surprised. “I, sure, I’ll just have water. Look, I was wondering, actually—”  
“I’ll be right back with the water, then. Here’s a menu.” I shoved the booklet under his nose and left. I wouldn’t call what I did a run, more like a dignified, speedy stride. But it was close, I’ll admit.  
I killed as much time as possible before getting his water. I checked every single table, chatted up customers, flirted with all the guys around my age and some of the girls, too (and may have disrupted a few dates in the process). With a half-hour gone and Potter still stubbornly in his seat, I resigned myself to do my job.  
I plunked the glass down on the table before him. “And can I get you anything to eat?”  
“I’ll have the steak. But dinner’s not really the reason I came here—”  
“I’ll be right back with that, then. No soup? No salad? Wonderful.” I let go of the mask when I turned my back to him, some sort of pained expression contorting my face.  
Sophie sidled up to me while I was giving Ryan Potter’s order. “Who’s that guy?”  
“Which guy?”  
“The one who’s sitting alone in your sector?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“Bullshit you don’t! He’s been staring at you all night. He’s staring at you right now.”  
I could feel the back of my neck burning. “I just know him from school.”  
“That’s all? Or is there something else?”  
“There’s nothing else.”  
Sophie harrumphed. It was obvious she didn’t believe me.  
“I have to go bring this to table nine. Stop being nosy! There’s nothing there!”  
“Fine, I’ll drop it,” she said, intending to do nothing of the sort. “But it’s going to be hard not to, with Loverboy’s pining expression over there.”  
I almost dropped the plate I was carrying. “Please,” I muttered, my face burning. Harry Potter didn’t pine. Especially not for someone like me. He just wanted to know something he obviously thought I knew.  
She just laughed and sauntered away, tossing her long hair over one shoulder.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”  
“Yeah, you could stay a minute and talk to me.”  
“We’re very busy—”  
“Please.” I’d never heard that tone in Potter’s voice before, and it gave me pause. I glanced at his face—for most of this and all of our other conversations, I’d stared at the stain next to his collar—and saw that his eyes held a strange mix of determination and vulnerability.  
“How do you even know where I work?” My voice came out sharper than I intended. Vulnerability tended to make me recoil. Even if it wasn’t my own.  
“Luna told me.” He looked a little thrown. I suppose in the years since I’d left, he’d had no one challenge him like I did.  
“I figured.”  
“I was wondering what you were doing, after your shift.” Potter may have changed—in however many ways, I wasn’t sure yet—but he was still as relentless as ever.  
“Why?”  
“So we could talk.”  
I sighed. “About what, Potter? If you’re here, you know I’m trying very hard to separate myself from wizarding society. And I was succeeding, too, before you came along. If you’re looking for some sort of information, I have nothing to offer you.”  
“No, it’s not that. Information. I don’t want any information or anything, really. I just want to talk.”  
“But why?”  
He gave me a long-suffering sigh. “Because I realize that for someone who dominated a large portion of my thoughts for a few years, I really know nothing about you.”  
“You already knew everything you needed to back then.” I was feeling upset and a little stung, though I couldn’t tell you why. And, if I really must tell you, more than a bit intrigued—he really thought about me that much?  
Stop it, I thought, gritting my teeth. Whatever feelings I ever had for him were obviously never going to be reciprocated. I didn’t need to repeat our history to know that was abundantly clear.  
“We were different people back then,” he said, his voice going a bit quieter. “I thought, we could…I don’t know. Let me take you somewhere, I’ll buy you a drink.”  
That sounded suspiciously like he was trying to ask me out, and the prospect of that made me excited and wary at once, though I knew it would never actually happen. We’d only had one real conversation in years, and although it went much differently than I expected, and although he seemed much different himself, I knew that to most people I was probably still just a Death Eater. And where was the girl? Weaselette? Hadn’t they been dating? Of course Harry was probably straight. He was probably so straight he didn’t realize what his question sounded like to my gay ass. I was getting all worked up for no reason at all.  
Stop it, I told myself again.  
“I…I don’t get off work until late tonight. You should just go.” I was suddenly exhausted.  
“I can wait. I don’t mind.”  
“Really, Potter, I—”  
“Draco. Please.” I think I stopped breathing when he said my name. I’d never seen his expression so open before, and it made my heart stop.  
I swallowed heavily. “I probably won’t be out until midnight…” His eyes stayed on my face, watchful and unwavering. I felt rather unsettlingly hunted. “But…alright. Alright, sure.”  
His face split into a grin, and I walked away before I could say anything stupid. Sophie smirked at me as I passed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’d tried not to think about what was up next for the night during my shift. I tried not to think about how I looked, either. Usually before dates I like to pamper myself a little bit. It makes me more relaxed and more confident, too, knowing I’ve put effort into my appearance. I finger-combed my hair back in the mirror and checked my shirt over for stains, splashed some water on my face and stared myself down for a little while, but there was nothing much I could do about the general air of tiredness that perpetually clung to me, or the smell of Ryan’s cooking that wove its way into my clothes after eight hours.  
He was waiting for me at the front entrance when I left, directly under the streetlight. Harry Potter, looking towards me and smiling, waiting to take me out on something that seemed very much like a date—my teenage self was screaming inside.  
I didn’t comment on the fact that he’d changed shirts—the stained one from earlier was nowhere to be seen. The one he had on now was a dark green that made his eyes look dashing. I didn’t comment on that either.  
“Where are we off to?” I asked him.  
“Do you go to the pub?”  
“Sometimes.” Not really. Not with anyone besides Pansy. And when we did, it was only because drinks at the pub were cheaper than drinks at the club—made it easier to pregame before a long night out. But he didn’t need to know that.  
“Would you like to go to one now?” He bit his lip. He looked nervous. I made him nervous. All that time spent trying to get under his skin, and now I made him nervous. Naturally.  
I didn’t think about how nervous I made him or how that made me feel. “Sure,” I replied.  
“I know a good place.” He held out his arm and I took it, ignoring the warmth radiating from underneath his jacket sleeve as we apparated wherever he had in mind.

The pub was crowded, which was to be expected, but it was well-kept and had a nice atmosphere. It was Muggle, which could have been either because he knew how long it had been since I’d appeared in the wizarding world or that he was ashamed to be seen with me—maybe both. I couldn’t blame him too much. It would cause quite a scandal, what with my disappearance and all. Regardless of whom we were, that is.  
He got a beer. I don’t like beer, so I got a cider. Like I said, I have a sweet tooth. If I was going to be a slave to my vices tonight I thought I might as well do so wholeheartedly.  
I drank the first one fast. I drank the second one faster. The way this night was going, I wouldn’t have any tip money by the rapidly approaching morning.  
“This is…too weird,” I told him, taking a swig from my glass.  
“Is it because of the nargles?” Harry asked in total seriousness. I burst out laughing.  
“Not the nargles!” I exclaimed. “Has she gone on about those to you too?”  
“Of course.” He smiled. I liked his smile. I’d always liked his smile. It made me angry he never turned it on me. But, miraculously, here he was.  
“Is she putting you up to this?” I asked.  
He sighed. “No, Draco, I want to be here. I told you.”  
“You wouldn’t be here, though, if she hadn’t encouraged you. I bet Granger and the Weasel don’t know you’re here.”  
“They…” he hesitated. I smirked, smug and triumphant. “This isn’t about them, they don’t need to know. My life doesn’t revolve around them.”  
“Doesn’t it?”  
“No,” he said with more force than necessary.  
I nodded, sensing I was entering dangerous territory. “Okay.”  
He scrutinized me. I glared at him, uncomfortable.  
“So you’re a waiter, then?”  
“What, like that’s not a respectable job?”  
“Well, no, but..”  
“It’s not what you figured I’d be doing. Don’t worry, Potter, it’s not what I thought I would be doing either. I thought I’d be relaxing on some tropical beach, drinking cocktails and being waited on for the rest of my life, but the pull of a joyous and rewarding life walking food to the overweight masses was truly what I found to be my passion.”  
He was grinning, shaking his head incredulously. I feared a lull in the conversation and I felt tipsy, so I continued in my usual, dramatic fashion, as though Potter was really just Pansy in disguise. “Nothing pleases me more than arguing with Muggles over whether or not they actually ordered the chicken cordon bleu. ‘But it’s not blue!’” I put on a purposefully annoying voice. “ ‘And is there really bubble gum in the bubble gum flavor ice cream? Why in heaven’s name wouldn’t you warn people? My Steven could have choked!’ If I got that disgusting flavor, I would have choked just from the taste. Steven deserved whatever he got.”  
He was really laughing now, and it was good to see.  
“That’s ridiculous,” he said. His eyes crinkled at the corners behind his glasses. I liked that.  
_I shouldn’t feel this way about him. I thought I could shut him out. This is just going to end with you getting hurt. Why are you so stupid?_ My mind managed to slap the smile off my face.  
“Draco? Are you alright?”  
I hated how much I liked hearing him use my first name. I stared at the table and took a breath. I couldn’t let him see how moody I was. “I’m fine.”  
_You’re being stupid. Irrational. Over-emotional, like always. Why do you always have to act like this?_  
This is why I hate having him around so much.  
_God, I hate myself so much._  
If I was stupid, I’d say he looked concerned.  
“Hey,” he said softly. He had to lean towards me, because it was hard to hear over the din of the bar. “We can leave if you want. I know you said you were tired. I don’t want you to be here if you don’t want to be.”  
I sighed, feeling overwhelmed. As if I could convince myself this was just another night. When I went out with Pansy it was so much different. Our conversation was always easy and I always knew where I stood with her. She and I goaded each other on and convinced ourselves everything was a good idea. There was no room for doubts on a night out with Pansy.  
I didn’t want to leave but if I stayed here, like this, I knew I would ruin it. Whatever it was. “I think…that might be best, yes.”  
“Alright. Come on then.” He held my arm and led me through the crowd of people, nudging and elbowing our way out until we were on the sidewalk.  
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, his voice seeming much louder now that the music was gone. “I should have listened to you when you said you got out late. I didn’t mean to pressure you into anything…” He trailed off, noticing that I was staring at him.  
“What?”  
I laughed. It sounded a little hysterical. “You’re being so nice to me right now.”  
He scuffed his shoe on the ground. “Would you rather I was mean to you?”  
“At least that would be predictable.”  
He opened his mouth and then closed it. Then, “I’d rather not be.”  
I laughed a little more and ran a hand through my hair. What could be worse than having Harry Potter as an enemy? Oh. Right. Having him try to be friends with you.  
“Draco…?”  
I was fidgeting, taking a few steps here, a few steps there. My Mark was itchy—it got that way when I felt really stressed. I should just go. “Don’t say my name.”  
“Oh.” He paused. “I…why? You let Luna…”  
“You’re not Luna.”  
“Ah.” He sounded stung. Great, now I insulted him. Maybe now he would start hating me again. I should have felt relief from that thought, but instead it just made me more anxious.  
“No, I mean…it’s different. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sorry.”  
He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head slightly. “…Alright.”  
I hated this. I hated this. I felt like I was in a boxing ring and we were just pacing around each other with our words. Never a direct hit. Circling around anything of value.  
I suppose he thought so, too.  
“I used to have a crush on you,” he blurted. He looked almost as shocked to hear the words as I did.  
“You wh- _what_?” I asked, stumbling over my words in disbelief. “What?”  
His face flared red and he stared at his shoes, hands shoved in his pockets. “I didn’t really know…I didn’t really get what it was, at the time. But that’s what it must’ve been, looking back.”  
I was a little stunned and didn’t say anything while I collected my thoughts, until I realized Harry looked like he was ready to let the earth open up and swallow him. “You…” I laughed and shook my head. “But I was such a brat!”  
He burst out laughing. Louder and longer than really necessary, but most of it was fueled by relief, I think.  
“You were,” he admitted, holding his side.  
Silence fell between us again. “I used to have one on you, too,” I admitted.  
He raised an eyebrow. “Really?”  
“Yeah.”  
He scoffed. “We were so dumb.”  
“Not so much. Just preoccupied. We had other things to worry about.” I realized for Harry, that may have been even truer.  
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Are…do you still want to call it a night?”  
I bit my lip. I didn’t want to, but “I think that would be wise.”  
“Can you apparate back?”  
“I’ll be fine, Harry. Don’t worry about me.” I shot a half-smile at him and saw he was wearing a wide-eyed expression with a small, surprised smile. It gave me some satisfaction to see that I could surprise him too. “Goodnight, Potter,” I said, and apparated back to my flat.  
I flopped onto my bed, tugging my hair. Etty, disturbed by my sudden appearance and movements, yowled and fled to the windowsill. I let her flick her tail at me. I had better things on my mind.  
When would I see him again? He had liked me. And I’d liked him! All that wasted time and energy. It didn’t mean he still did, but now at least I had some reason to hope, no matter how far-fetched it was.  
When would I see him again? We hadn’t talked. I’d left too quickly.  
Wow, I wanted to see him again.  
I smiled into my pillow. Little voice inside my head be damned.  
Maybe he had wanted that to be a date, after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I learned when I moved in that firecalling is impossible without access to a fireplace, of which I have a distinct lack. Pansy usually just sends her owl out and then I use him to reply. I’d bought a phone once I figured out employers really wanted a way to get in contact with their employees, and so it now had two numbers in it. The restaurant, and the number for the phone Luna purchased. She’d bought it before I even had one. I’m not sure where she got it. I’m not sure who she called. I don’t think she ever used it, really. She just liked to marvel at it and say that the way Muggles were moving, they’d be able to do things without magic that were impossible even for the best witches and wizards.  
Maybe I would have argued or been offended, if I was the person I used to be. But, admittedly, wizards have never set foot on the moon. I can’t even begin t comprehend how they did that. And I didn’t even know about it, before I lived with them!  
She called me the very next morning.  
“How was it?”  
Fumbling with the phone with my eyes still closed, I decided to play dumb. “How was what?”  
“Did you see him yesterday?”  
“Who?”  
“You know who, Draco.”  
“That man has been dead for several years, lucky for the rest of us.”  
“Is this—Draco Malfoy—displaying a sense of humor? Last night must have gone very well indeed.”  
“We didn’t do anything, Luna. We just talked.”  
“Ah.”  
“You knew he used to think of me.”  
“I did say he was obsessed. The only people who never noticed were the two of you.”  
“I always thought he just thought I was up to something, which I was. That’s all.”  
“Well, that too. But you can’t tell me you were the only student in Hogwarts engaged in less than honorable behavior. Besides, it was obvious you wanted his attention, up until your sixth year. And that was the year Harry wouldn’t stop trying to get your attention. Honestly, the both of you were really very obvious.”  
“Maybe to a Ravenclaw such as yourself.”  
“Maybe. I like to think of myself as very knowledgeable. I have a good sense of intuition about people.”  
“I’m surprised your intuition picked me, then.”  
“You aren’t who you used to be. You know that.”  
“Yeah, I do.” I blinked up at my ceiling, rolling over, still in bed. “Coffee date tomorrow?”  
“Naturally. I’ll see you then.”  
“Yeah-hm.”  
I shut the phone and rolled over to snuggle with Clawdette. I didn’t have much experience with pets, besides the peacocks Mother used to have, but Etty seemed very good-natured for a cat. She certainly never tried to claw me. She tried to claw Harry, though, although I’m getting ahead of myself.  
I pressed my cheek into her fur and said to her, “This just might actually go somewhere, Etty.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He showed up at the diner the next time I was working—Luna told him, again, but this time she was obvious about asking me. We were swamped again, and I told him I really didn’t have time afterwards, which was really true—I needed to think of a present for Mother. Her birthday was rapidly approaching and I was hopelessly lost. Usually bought her jewelry, something old and authentic or new and chic, but I had neither the money nor the knowledge at this time to get her either. I was wracking my brain for an idea, and it took quite a lot of my time and energy, so I turned him away gently, knowing I wouldn’t be able to be the person I wanted to be for the night.  
The next time I was working, I didn’t see Harry, but I found a snitch in the pocket of my jacket as I walked out of the restaurant. I let it zip around the flat, idly catching and releasing it, watching Etty try her hardest to defeat it for good.  
The time after that, I found a note.

_I bet I can still beat you. Wanna fly?_

_~H_

Thankfully, it had no animation of either of us getting struck by lightning, unlike a different note I once gave him.  
He returned the third night in person, right as I was leaving for break.  
“So?” he asked.  
“I believe you have yourself a match,” I said. “Please don’t be too distraught when I beat you.” The smile twisting my lips softened the words, but I meant them. I was going to win.  
He just laughed.  
“Scared, Potter?”  
He smirked. “You wish.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	4. Flying

We went out on my next day off and agreed to meet outside the library. It was early and I was a little nervous, so when I saw him apparate in a sheltered area off to the side I walked over mire slowly than entirely necessary, mulling over how our conversation might go. I’d “forgotten” to tell him before that I didn’t have a broom—the ministry confiscated literally everything of value, and my Nimbus definitely had that—and now I had to, even though my pride was despairing. This would really test, at least, whether or not my perceptions of Potter were right or wrong. The Harry I used to know would have had a ball mocking me after all the time I spent shoving my money n his face. I really, really hoped that wouldn’t be the case, but a little thread of doubt wormed its way into my thoughts anyway.  
“Hey,” he said warmly.  
“Hi. I, uh.” I laughed self-consciously. “I forgot to say. I don’t actually have a broom.”  
“Oh, that’s alright. I have extras.”  
“Plural?”  
He ran a hand through his hair, a little uncomfortable. “A lot of companies send me free things, to sponsor them…and whenever they use my name, for legal reasons, they have to pay me. So I get a lot of free stuff.”  
“Oh. Okay. Well, that’s good, at least. Should we stop by your place, then, before we go?”  
“Nah, I’ve got everything we need in here.” He patted the messenger bag hanging from his shoulder. He saw my bemused expression and laughed. “Hermione charmed it for me, so it can hold pretty much anything. She uses that charm all the time, she’s so good at it.”  
I raised my eyebrow. “She’s good at everything.”  
He laughed again. “Yeah, she is.” He held out his arm. “Shall we?”  
I took it, and we disappeared.

He threw me the latest Firebolt from his bag. I caught it and ogled for the time it took him to set up, releasing the snitch and getting his own broom.  
“You ready?” he called, already seated and moving upwards.  
“I can’t believe this!” I shouted, mounting my own broom and taking off.  
“Then believe it when I beat you!” He shot like a rocket straight up towards the sky. I followed close behind.  
It was exhilarating after so long to be back up in the air. The wind whistling through my ears, the feeling of it on my face, through my hair, in my clothes. The eye-watering, breathless speed of it all. I missed this.  
Harry veered sharply to the left and I followed him with a slower turn. For all my bravado, I was very rusty.  
The snitch flew to and fro, always just out of Harry’s reach. As I regained my old confidence in the air, sometimes it was just out of mine, too.  
The Snitch plunged down, both of us neck and neck in hot pursuit. The field we were flying over was rapidly approaching.  
The Snitch jerked to the left and I used all the muscles in my arms to break out of the dive as fast as I could. Once I found myself in the right direction, the object of interest was nowhere to be seen.  
Feeling giddy, I hip-checked Harry playfully. “Three years without flying, and I can still give you a challenge.”  
He grinned. “We’ve only just started. You haven’t seen anything yet.”  
“Is that so?”  
He tore off without answering. I started to follow, but stopped when I realized he wasn’t after the Snitch. He spiraled, first in big circles, then consecutively smaller and faster. He dove and veered out of it at a breakneck pace, only to slow down and do lazy backflips in midair. He looked entirely at ease, more at home than a bird.  
If it wasn’t fairly obvious, I should say that he was the reason I started playing Quidditch. I wanted to be as good as he was. And, yes, I wanted the attention that came with it. So I practiced, hard. All that summer. It was, at that point in my life, the only thing I had really worked hard to achieve—I found most of my classes ridiculously easy, both because my parents had taken care to teach me the basics of magic before I got my wand and mucked something up, and because I am very smart (surprising, I know).  
It had stung when Harry accused me of buying my way onto the team. Granted, I had. At least in part. Quidditch teams don’t accept first-string players younger than fourth year, so I’d bribed a few people to let me try out. But my performance there was unbiased. I pitted myself against the older kids in a fair match (or as close to fair as you can get in my old house), and had gotten the position on the team despite my age. I was extremely proud of myself, and was a very good flier. Of course, Harry would never have admitted it, not then. Just like I would have never admitted how much I admired him, or how jealous I was of all the adoration he relieved because of something he so obviously was naturally talented at.  
I spied a flash of gold out of the corner of my eye, and dove.

The first roll of thunder sounded when we were forty feet in the air. Harry and I looked over at each other across fifteen feet of open air and descended.  
My feet hit the ground right as lightning struck the trees towards the horizon and it started to pour. Still dizzy and excited from flying, I raised my hands to the sky and whooped. The rain streamed down my face cold in rivulets, turning the once-warm day chilly.  
I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Harry, squinting through the water clinging to his glasses. The wide smile on his face mirrored my own.  
He had to shout to be heard over the wind. “Do you—“  
Lightening struck again, this time in the forest near us. We could hear wood splintering, and the reverberation from the thunder practically shook the ground.  
“Let’s go!” he yelled.  
“Okay!”  
With a twist, the barrage of pounding rain was stilled, though the noise of the downpour continued. I wiped water out of my eyes and looked around to find we were under an overhang outside of a squat little apartment building. Harry fished a key out from his endless bag and I realized this was, in fact, where he lived. I’m not sure why this realization came as such a shock to me—probably because I’d thought the Savior would live in some sort of grand mansion. Like the Manor, if not better. But with everything Harry did, it seemed who I’d sarcastically been calling the Savior and the actual person was were two very different characters.  
He held the door open for me. I followed him into the elevator and he pressed the button for the third floor. As the doors shut, he started. “Oh! I hope you don’t mind. It was the first place I thought of that we could dry off. Do you mind? We could go somewhere else if you want.”  
“No, this is fine. I’m surprised you live with Muggles, though.”  
“Yeah.” He tugged on the bottom of his shirt, wringing it out. “The media was a little too much. They kept following me everywhere. They’d camp out at the end of the trespassing wards I put up, and it was too much of a hassle to make a non-detection spell, so I just decided to go where nobody would chase after me.”  
“Makes sense,” I said, noting the similarities between us. Though, of course, Potter was universally adored, whereas I was universally despised.  
The elevator dinged and we left, stopping at Harry’s door so he could open the lock. His apartment was small but cozy, with a large, worn couch and a lot of throw pillows and blankets, a small television, and lots of bookshelves in the little living room area. I took off my shoes, trying not to wipe mud on anything, and walked over to take a look at the covers while Harry rummaged in another room. I held myself stiffly and tried not to drip on anything, still shivering slightly. I could have cast a drying spell on myself, but they always made my clothes stiff and my skin cracked, and I much preferred to dry off the normal way without my shelf full of lotions nearby.  
“Would you like some other clothes to wear?” Harry asked when he noticed that I was still wet, his head peeking around what I assumed to be his bedroom door.  
“Sure,” I said with relief. “I only really need a new shirt, I think—my trousers are fine enough as they are.”  
“Alright.” His head disappeared for a moment and I heard various thuds. He returned with a blue sweater and, surprisingly, didn't question my particularity. “If you want a towel to dry yourself off, too, it’ll be just over in the bathroom. Feel free to use it, go ahead.”  
“Thank you,” I said, taking the offered sweater and shutting the door behind me.  
I wasn’t sure what to do with the soggy mess that was my shirt, so I left it hanging on the hook next to the towel. I rubbed at my hair, trying to get it somewhere close to dry. It always got unruly and stuck up in awkward clumps when it was damp, plus it turned a light gold color rather than its usual platinum blonde. I ran my fingers through it a few times and grimaced in the mirror. It would have to do.  
I picked up Harry’s sweater and pulled it on. He was a bit shorter than me, but much broader, especially in the shoulders, so it hung off me a bit but worked well enough. It felt worn and soft, a lot like the clothes I owned now. Back when I was a kid I always had new, fancy, and most usually very uncomfortable clothes to wear. The only times my shirts were this comfortable was if they were pajamas.  
Shaking my hair out once more, I left the bathroom and followed my ears, hearing Harry mucking around the kitchen. I scuffed at the floor so he would hear me coming.  
“Tea?” he asked, not turning around.  
“Yes, please.” The sweater helped, but I was still freezing from the wind and rain. Goosebumps prickled my arms. I pulled my sleeves around my hands and rubbed them, trying to work some warmth in. Then, feeling like a dolt and remembering there were no Muggles around to see, I cast a warming charm on both myself and, after asking him, Harry, to which he sighed appreciatively.  
He filled a mug and added some sugar when I asked. I usually have a bit more than two spoonfuls, because my sweet tooth is extremely unhealthy, but for the sake of not looking disgusting I asked him to only put one in, and then drowned it in milk. He stopped short when he turned to hand it to me, looking at me for the first time since leaving the bathroom. “Oh.”  
I fiddled with the sleeves of the sweater self-consciously. "Oh, what?"  
“Uh, nothing. Here you go. Would you like to sit on the couch? It’s a lot comfier than the chairs the tenant before me left.” He motioned to the table. It stood a little crooked, despite the book placed under one leg, and the wooden chairs looked hard.  
“Okay.” I walked back over and settle myself down folding my legs in. I wrapped my hands around the warm mug and held it close to my face to stave off the lingering chill I felt, listening to the rain outside of the window.  
I smiled to myself. “I haven’t flown like that in ages,” I told Harry.  
“Me neither,” he replied. “It was good to fly with an opponent.”  
“We’ll have to have a rematch,” I said, “considering we were so rudely interrupted before either of us could catch the Snitch.”  
“You’re on,” he said. “Anytime, anyplace. “  
“What do I get if I win?”  
He laughed. “Of course there has to be a prize. What would you like?”  
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll have to think about it. Prizes are a very serious matter, after all.”  
“Of course. And what do I get if I win?”  
“I don’t make up the rules for this, Potter. What do you want?” I ask with a grin, resting my cheek on my knees to look at him.  
He was smiling, but then we made eye contact, and his joking expression slowly faded and was replaced by something more serious as his eyes searched my face.  
“I don’t know,” he mumbled hoarsely, but it sounded unconvincing.  
I unfolded my legs so my feet touched the ground and leaned back into the couch, the back of my head resting on the pillows behind me. I smiled a bit at him, but it felt forced from how nervous I was. “Maybe you should figure that out,” I said to him gently.  
“Yeah,” he laughed weakly, scratching his head. “Maybe I should.”  
I listened to the rain and looked into my tea, feeling a little nervous and a little awkward because of the break in conversation. “You have a lot of books,” I say, for want of something more interesting to talk about. “Have you read all of them?”  
“No, I’ve only read a few actually.” He smiled. “Most of them used to be Hermione’s; ones she’s lent to me and won’t let me give back to her until I've read them. I’ve accumulated quite a lot over the years.”  
I squinted to read a few covers. My eyesight wasn’t the best—it had been deteriorating steadily for a few years, and I didn't know any charms for it well enough to confidently cast them on myself, so I needed to use glasses more and more—but I managed to make out the writing on the spine on one of the larger ones. “ ‘Hogwarts, a History’?”  
He laughed out loud. “Hermione’s been trying to get me to read that since we became friends. The stuff she read in it helped us out of so many sticky situations, I really should read it.”  
“Sticky situations? Like what?” I cocked my head and took a drink of tea, curious. From what I recalled, besides detention and the occasional fight in the halls or on the grounds, Harry only really got into massive amounts of trouble starting fourth year. Though there was talk of him and the Weasel running a car into the Whomping Willow, I did hear about that. Severus was very angry about it, if I remembered correctly.  
He raised his eyebrows. “So much. I don’t know where to start.”  
I stay quiet and watch him curiously, waiting.  
“Do you remember that time we went into the Forbidden Forest?” he asked me.  
I shuddered. “I hate that place,” I said with venom.  
He nodded. “Yeah, I do too. But, this once in second year, Ron and I went there…” My eyes got bigger and bigger as he continued the story. When he got to the part about the feral flying car coming to their rescue, I exclaimed, “I knew it! That was the one you flew into the Willow, then!”  
“Yeah,” he laughed. “The same one. It wasn’t too pleased with us.”  
I shook my head in amazement.  
“Oh, and this one time,” he said excitedly, “you’ll never believe it. You know how Hagrid loved adopting dangerous pets?”  
“How could I forget? After I was brutally gored by that Hippogriff.” I winced. That was the wrong thing to say. I knew he liked Hagrid.  
“Well, you did insult him first. He actually was letting you pet him before then—he bowed to you and everything.”  
“Yeah, I know.” I sighed. “Could you…I mean, if you even want to bring it up at all, I don’t know how sensitive Hagrid is or anything, but…could you apologize to him for me? About that? I know it won’t fix it, but it wasn’t right of me to get that thing executed, all because I wanted some extra attention…” I trailed off, looking at the strange, knowing little smile Harry had on. “What?”  
“Well, you definitely need to apologize,” he said, to which I was going to indignantly reply before he cut me off quickly. “But not for Buckbeak’s death, because he didn’t die.”  
I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean?”  
“He didn’t die. Hermione and I rescued him right before the executioner got to him.”  
“What?”  
Harry had gotten into much more trouble than I thought. He told me story after story of all the things they did, and all I could do was listen and think, No wonder they’re such good friends. They had to be, saving each other’s lives all the time.  
“What about you?” he asked suddenly.  
“Huh?”  
“What did you do? You and Pansy and Blaise and Theodore? Or Crabbe and Goyle?”  
“Do you think everyone has fantastic stories like you do?”  
“Well, you have to have some stories.”  
I laugh. “Not everyone is as impulsive as you and your friends are,” I said.  
“I bet you did something interesting,” he cajoled me.  
I bit my lip, remembering.  
“Now I know you did something.”  
“It wasn’t exactly any feat of bravery. Nothing death-defying like battling it out against a hundred giant spiders or sedating a three-headed dog.”  
“Tell me anyway.”  
“Did you know Pansy has a brother?”  
“No, I didn’t.”  
“Yep. His name is Caleb. He’s three years older than us.”  
“So, what about Caleb?”  
“Well,” I paused, thinking of how to tell this story. It wasn’t a secret, really, but the only person I’d ever told was Nott, because I didn’t think the others would really appreciate it. “During fourth and fifth year, Pansy and I pretended to date. Both of our parents wanted us to marry into pureblood families, and we’d been friends for so long—it seemed only natural. We used it as a way to stop them from trying to arrange partners for us, because unfortunately for us that’s become a common tradition. I hadn’t—and haven’t, still—come out to my parents, so when I owled them and told them, they were ecstatic. Pansy spent parts of Christmas break over the Manor, and I spent parts of the summer over at hers.”  
“And Caleb features into this…?”  
“Well, because I was seeing him,” I laughed, a little embarrassed. “He and I sent tons and tons of letters back and forth after we’d met that first summer I spent over at her house. Mother and Father were so pleased, thinking all the owls were correspondence between me and Pansy. And she loved it, I think because Caleb was always the good one—she liked knowing that he rebelled from them too, in his own, less obvious way. This one time, we were making out in the woods on his family’s property, and one of the house elves looking for us apparated right next to us! We were so surprised he tripped and fell face-first into a stream. I remember one night I had to balance on the roof and run from his window to my own, trying not to get caught in his room by his mother. ” I laughed. “I once managed to hide him in my room for three whole days by bribing the house elves to bring up food every few hours. We got locked in a closet for five hours at one point—which is all sorts of ironic—because my father was having a dinner party he forgot to tell me about.”  
Harry looked amused, but there was something else on his face that I couldn’t place. “What’s he doing now?”  
“Ah,” I said, running a hand through my hair and taking a sip of tea. “We don’t talk anymore. We used to be friendly, but then, after the war…everything just, you know.” I shrugged. “It’s alright.”  
“Hm.” He stared at me and bit his lip, looking troubled. “Is it bad?”  
“Is what bad?”  
“How others treat you.”  
I shrugged and pulled his sweater tighter around myself. “I mean…nobody knows who I am or what I’ve done here, so it’s not bad. A little lonely, I guess.” I rubbed the scar of where my Mark used to be, thinking about how I was cornered in that close behind Diagon Alley. “I don’t go back, though. To wizarding society. They’re, they…” I shook my head.  
He was quiet for a bit, and then shifted to move closer to me. “You don’t deserve to be treated the way they treat you.”  
I barked a bitter laugh. “Of course I do, Potter. I tortured people.” I couldn’t look at him.  
“…You did?”  
I nodded, biting my lip. There it was. That horror in his voice. He would realize how terrible I was and kick me out. He would insult me and I would deserve it, because who the hell was I to think that Harry could ever even tolerate my presence?  
“I threw up after,” I said, wanting to throw up then and there. “All over the floor. Aunt Bella laughed at me and made like she was going to rub my face in it.”  
“Draco…”  
“It’s fine. It’s alright.” I took a deep breath. “Are you cold?” I asked. “I think its a little cold in here.” I put my tea down and made another warming charm for myself. “Would you like one?” I glanced to him and bit my lip, looking away. I was shaking a little, despite the charm, and breathing funny. It wasn’t because I was cold.  
I felt a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Draco. I shouldn’t have asked. I have a hard time controlling my mouth, sometimes, and tend to blurt things without thinking.”  
“S’okay,” I mumbled, rubbing my arm.  
Don’t cry, don’t cry, I thought. Why are you always so emotional? You’re ruining everything right now, just suck it up.  
He hesitated, swallowing. “If…if you want to leave again, I understand. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable, I promise. I’m just an idiot.”  
I laughed, but it sounded thin and watery. “I’m not gonna argue that,” I said. I sniffed and rubbed my face. “I’m sorry, Harry.”  
“Don’t apologize.” The hand stayed on my shoulder, but the pressure of it lessened a bit. I’d scared him off.  
“Could I give you a hug?”  
I looked up at him sharply to see him looking back at me concernedly, closer than before but still respectful, not invading my space. I nodded because I didn’t trust my voice.  
He gently pulled me into his arms, the scent of cinnamon enveloping me. I shifted and wrapped my arms around his torso, feeling his hand stroke my back. His kindness just made me want to cry even more. I bit my lip and held onto his sweatshirt, waiting for the feeling to pass. After a while, it did, and it left me feeling exhausted.  
“Sorry to ruin the day,” I said, half-joking and pulling away slowly. “I made it way more emotional than it needed to be.”  
His arms tightened around me briefly before letting go. “It’s alright, Draco. Like I said, it was my fault for bringing it up.”  
“Hm.” I rubbed my hands over my face again and looked away, still embarrassed.  
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked quietly. “Anything you’d like? Something to eat, or something?”  
“No, not really,” I replied. My stomach felt rather upset, probably from repressing all that emotion. “I’d…could we maybe just watch some TV?” Even with the rain, the apartment felt too quiet. There was too much room for talking, and the thought of that exhausted me further.  
“Of course.” He fetched the remote from on top of it and tossed it over to me. “Pick whatever you want.”  
I flipped through the channels and selected a station playing Friends. I heard him laugh a bit through his nose. “What?”  
“It just doesn’t seem your style, this show.”  
“I love this show,” I told him. “Phoebe is my favorite character.”  
He smiled. “Okay,” he said. “We can watch it.”  
As the episode played, he pulled a blanket off the back of the couch to wrap himself in. He held it out to me, and I moved closer so I could be under it, too. Before the credits rolled I found myself pressed against his side, that comforting hand rubbing circles on my shoulder again. It was a nice place to be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“How was it?”  
“How was what?”  
“Draco, don’t be coy. You know I mean the date.”  
“We never said it was a date.”  
“What else would it be?”  
“I don’t know…” I stalled, trying to be funny. “Two guys? Just hanging out? Being bros?”  
Luna laughed. It sounded like tinkling bells, and made me smile. “Just two bros? Hanging out? Is that what you told each other you were while you kissed?”  
“We didn’t kiss!”  
She tsked. “He really likes you.”  
“I believe it by now, Luna. I’m not entirely thick. You don’t need to keep repeating it.”  
“Did you have a fun time, though?”  
I thought back and smiled. “It was…yeah, I did.”  
She nodded. “That’s all I wanted to know.”  
“Why, because Harry’s already told you everything else?”  
“No,” she protested, but her smile was wicked.  
“Liar!”  
She just laughed.


	5. The Unwelcome Visitor

 

One week after my meeting with Potter and my mood was sour. He hadn’t been coming to the restaurant. I was afraid I’d scared him away. Sophie bragging to me all shift didn’t help.

“Guess what I’m doing tonight?” she asked in a sing-song voice.

“Probably something more exciting than what I’m doing,” I muttered sullenly, finding the only thing I had to look forward to was a new episode of my show.

“I’m going to a concert!” exclaimed Sophie, waving a dish towel at me. “Florence + the Machine!”

“What type of Machine is it?”

“Oh.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “I don’t believe there is a machine, actually. I think that’s just the girl she used to play with. I’m not sure if she’s still in it.”

“So now it’s really only Florence and no Machine?”

“That’s not the point!”

“Of course it is. You’re not seeing half the act you signed up for.”

Sophie purposefully ignored me. “I love all her new songs. She’s going to be brilliant.”

I shrugged, staring through the windows at the couple who looked ominously like they were going to enter the restaurant. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard her.”

“She’s all over the radio.”

“If you say so.”

Sophie huffed. “You just don’t appreciate true talent.”

I scoffed. “You wouldn’t know talent if it bit you.”

She walked away with her chin held high, still ignoring me.

 

 _Pansy really needs a phone_ , I thought, scowling. Now that I didn’t have an owl it was very difficult to reach her for last-minute plans. I didn’t want to intrude, but I wanted to do something more. I decided at the risk of being rude to go anyway.

I was thankful that she lived away from her parents, in a very large apartment shared by her, Millie and the Greengrass sisters off of Diagon Alley. They had decided they liked living with each other enough to continue after the war and needed to make new reputations for themselves away from their parents (and away from their pureblood heritage). I haven’t told anyone but Pansy where I live, though—even though they say they’re progressive, I know they would be baffled, if not downright appalled, that I was living with Muggles. Especially the Greengrass sisters (not to name names). I think Millie would have been more accommodating if I told her, though, considering she is a half-blood. But I don’t quite like Millie, and I think the Greengrass sisters are riotous company, so I keep that bit of information to myself.

I knocked on the door and who else but my favorite answers the door. “Is Pansy in?” I asked her.

“Yea—” she started to reply, and I swept by her. I should really have tried to be nicer to her, but honestly, I’d already spent enough of my life tolerating her in the common room. I thought I shouldn’t have to do so now, after all the time I’ve put in.

“Pans!” I yelled, knocking on her bedroom door.

“What!” She opened the door and I see I’ve interrupted her. She’d taken off half her makeup, one eye looking strangely naked without the black that usually rimmed it. She waved me in, returning to her vanity, and continued scrubbing at her face.

“I want to do something tonight,” I told her. “Sophie was absolutely _horrible_ today gloating about some strange Muggle machine she’s going to go see, and it’s made me restless. We should do something exciting.”

“What do you have in mind?” she asked, looking at me through the mirror.

“I don’t know,” I said in surprise. “I hadn’t thought that far. We could crash the strange machine show, for irony’s sake, I suppose.”

“Darling, if we’re going to have a night out, we can’t be those horrible people who do it ironically.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Well, currently, I suggest I get some sleep. I stayed up terribly late last night and had an early class, plus I’ve worked all day. I would like to rest. So one fun thing you can do to really make Sophie jealous would be to make me dinner.”

“ _Pans_.”

“Or you could call up Potter and have a good shag, I suppose.”

“Pansy, no!” I exclaimed, my face in my hands in embarrassment and exasperation. “We haven’t done anything! I’ve told you, we never even held hands. We hardly know each other.”

She tutted. “Look at you. He definitely wants to do more than just hold your hand, love.”

I rubbed my Mark and shrugged. “We don’t even know each other,” I repeated stubbornly. “What would you like for dinner?”

She grinned at me in the mirror. “I’m in the mood for fish. Salmon?”

I sighed, acting very put-upon. “And I suppose I’ll have to go out and buy us white wine, then, to go with it.”

“You could let me choose.”

“I love you, but you know nothing about wine.”

“You really know how to seduce a girl.”

I shuddered. “Don’t give me flashbacks to when I thought someday I would have to.”

“You and I would have made a wonderful couple.”

“If one of us didn’t kill the other and get the house elves to bury the body in the woods first.”

“I wouldn’t trust that to the house elves, darling. You know how they can be.” She waved her wand and a few Sickles and Galleons went soaring out of my purse my way. “Have fun at the shop.” She wiggled her fingers at me in the mirror.

“The things I do for love,” I said to no-one, and apparated away.

 

“Have you made another date with him?” Pansy asked me over dinner.

“It’ not a date. And I don’t want to seem needy.”

“Draco, you _are_ needy.”

“He doesn’t need to know that.”

“I’m fairly sure he already does,” she replied archly. “Or was it a different Harry Potter you stalked all over Hogwarts?”

“I was young and stupid and didn’t realize I was gay,” I protested. “I know I’m gay now, and have accepted it, and along with accepting that comes accepting it is no longer appropriate to stalk good-looking guys around their work and places of residence.”

“I dunno. He did the same thing to you. Maybe that’s how he thinks flirting works. He always was pretty thick.”

“I do have his number,” I added, trying to sound as though it was off-handed. “I got it before I left his apartment.”

“What sort of a number?” she asked quizzically. “Quidditch number? Apartment number?”

“No, phone number.”

“Foam number?”

“No, phone. It’s a device Muggles use to contact each other. If you punch in the right string of numbers, it connects you with the phone belonging to the person you want to speak with, and then when they answer you can talk to them.”

“That sounds much more complicated than just firecalling or owling him.”

“I have neither a fireplace nor an owl.”

“Touché. I can’t believe you’re using Muggle things. I find them all to be confusing and barbaric.”

   “Don’t say that, someone will mistake you for a pureblood,” Astoria quipped, popping into the kitchen to rummage through a cabinet.

“Want some salmon?” I asked her.

“I’m sure it’s lovely, but I haven’t got time to eat,” she said. “I have to go down and help out at the shop soon.”

“I didn’t know Florean’s stayed open this late.”

“I’m on closing duty. We stay open until eleven, and then it takes another hour or so to close.” She scrunched her nose. “I never thought I would hate the taste of ice cream.”

“All those years trying to diet at Hogwarts, and all you needed to do was find a job,” Pansy added.

“Don’t say that,” she said, shoving a granola bar in her pocket. “You’ll jinx it. I’ll start looking like a baby elephant, and it will be all your fault.”

“I quite like elephants,” I piped up. “I think they’re cute.”

“You get free ice cream next time you come to Florean’s. You don’t,” she said, directing the latter part to Pansy as she left the room.

“So rude,” Pansy muttered halfheartedly. “You should do that. Go get ice cream. With Potter. Merlin, I never thought I would say something like that to you in earnest. Are you sure he’s not up to something? Are you?”

“What would I possibly be up to?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s some sort of scheme to win Potter’s trust, get him to follow you, and feed him to whatever monstrosity Hagrid called a pet this year.”

I whistled. “You seem to have put thought into it.”

“It’s not something I didn’t think about at school,” she said, but it was idle, without any real menace. “I was bored, and I needed attention, and I knew your relationship—whatever it was—was toxic. Chosen One or no, nobody gets in between me and the unadulterated adoration I deserve from my friends.”

“Ah. Purely for selfish reasons, then.”

“Of course. Go call Potter.”

“Well, we certainly can’t go to Florean’s.”

“Why not?”

“Ah, first is the small problem that he hates me. Second is the big problem the media would make if they found out a Death Eater has been corrupting their Savior.”

“Then go somewhere Muggle,” she said, her mouth twisting as though she was trying to eat a lemon. “You both obviously have an affinity for them, though I can’t imagine why.”

“I don’t have an affinity for them—it’s more masochistic than that.”

“You’d certainly have to be, to live in that sort of primitive squalor.”

“It’s actually not that bad—they’ve figured out how to do quite a lot of things without magic. It’s quite astounding really, I never knew any of it. Did you realize they have lights like that aren’t hot? And doors that lock themselves? And they’ve been to the moon, Pans!”

 “Yes, yes,” she said, waving me off. “I’m sure it’s all very fascinating. Congratulations on how very progressive you are. Now are you going to call Potter, or not?”

I hesitated. “I can wait.”

“Do it now,” she said, spearing a piece of fish. “So I can hear you. It’s been so long since I’ve been on a date, dearest, I have nothing left but to live vicariously through you.”

“Between you and Luna, I’d swear you two had some sort of agenda,” I muttered. She glared at me menacingly until I did just what she asked.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

We had been waiting for nearly ten minutes. Or, well, Harry had. He was nearly done with his ice cream.

“Is it really that important?”

“Yes,” I said distractedly, “it really is.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but he must have thought the better of it, because he didn’t speak. I’d been pacing around the shop for the ten minutes, looking from one end of the long aisle of ice cream bins to the other. They must have had over fifty flavors, and I needed to make sure I got the one I wanted. I couldn’t just go out and spend money frivolously. I had to save it for paying off my loan (or, more truthfully, in small part for the loan and in large part for the next coffee date with Luna or night out with Pansy, Just because Potter and I had started—something—didn’t mean he had any prestige over my friends). Plus, I wanted to know I was getting exactly what I wanted. And I wanted two scoops. So I needed to make sure I wanted two of both, or one of each, and if so which ones. It was all a very long process. I’m very meticulous. I like things in order.

Harry had already chomped his way through most of his very large ice cream cone. He got strawberry. He told me it was his favorite. I told him it was preposterous to decide that one flavor was his favorite if he had hardly tried anything else first.

I decided on getting Nutella cookie dough and vanilla caramel swirl. Harry raised his eyebrows when the woman behind the counter handed me my cone.

“Something wrong?” I asked him.

“That’s awfully sweet, is all.”

“Well it is ice cream. Luna is worse, anyway.”

“I never said that was bad.”

I shrugged. “I have a sweet tooth.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I laughed, remembering something. “When I was little I used to cajole the house elves into giving me more sweets, despite Mother and Father ordering them not to. I used to trick them when they were out by saying it was a special occasion, or that Mother had said it was alright. I’d try not to go to the same one each time because otherwise they’d get suspicious.”

“How old were you?”

“Oh, around seven or so.”

“That’s pretty conniving.”

“No-one gets in between me and my unhealthy sugar intake, Potter.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You’d better.”

We decided to take a short walk around a nearby park while I crunched on the last of my cone, wiping my sticky fingers with a napkin. I looked at him through the corner of my eye, though I tried to make it look as if I wasn’t.

He really was quite handsome. He was always too skinny as a teenager, his limbs a little gangly, a little awkward. He’d filled out much better in the few years between Hogwarts and now, and he was a good height, though I usually preferred my men a bit taller than me. His hair was still horrendous, but there was nothing to be done with that. And even behind his glasses, his eyes were that lovely bottle green color. I wanted to take his glasses off and see what they looked like behind them, and the thought of being so close gave me a little thrill.

 _Of course,_ I thought, _he could still say he just wants to be friends. That he doesn’t want anything more. I was right when I said we really don’t know each other—I have no idea what he wants._

I rubbed my arm and glanced away from him just as he looked towards me. I hoped he hadn’t caught me, but then, if he had, I doubted he could have acted as unfazed as he did.

We chatted a bit, talking about nothing. I found that he had the annoying habit of picking at his cuticles. I told him he should stop, and he did, for about thirty seconds. But it never mattered, because whenever he threw me that smile I always forgot everything else in that moment. It made me feel absolutely ridiculous.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Blaise and Theo had come up for the night from Spain, where they’d decided to start over. Blaise rambled about how lovely Barcelona was while Theo showed off his tan to Pansy. I was jealous, but hid it well enough, until I got drunk.

 I knew I would say something stupid, and when I already felt like I was skating on thin ice, I knew that wouldn’t fly. My relationship with the two of them—more so with Blaise, but then, the two were best friends, so Theo wouldn’t really argue with him, and certainly not for someone like myself—was not the best, ever since the war ended. Whether it was just because of the general hatred of Death Eaters of if crazy Aunt Bella or one of the other insane ones (in that group, mental instability was certainly not scarce) did something that affected him personally, I didn’t know. I never would. But I certainly felt the repercussions of it. I missed him. We used to get along well. We had similar senses of humor and verbally rebounded off of each other in a way that I’d always enjoyed. Theo was always good company, not too intrusive, sticking to the sidelines, but always with a witty comment or two to spare under his breath. Now, though, I got none of that.

I retreated into the bathroom of Pansy’s flat when I really felt the drink hitting me, and proceeded to do exactly what I told her I wouldn’t.

“Hi,” I said when Harry answered on the second ring.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“I’m drunk,” I announced, though I’d told myself I wasn’t. “How’re you?”

“Isn’t it eight-thirty in the evening?”

“I can get drunk anytime I want.”

“I hope you’re with someone.”

“I am. But I’d rather be with you.”

“Hm.” He exhaled a laugh. “Thanks, Malfoy.”

“You think I’m joking.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You’re so dumb,” I told him as eloquently as possible, scowling.

“I like to think I’m rather smart.”

“You are, but you’re still stupid anyway.”

He didn’t say much to that, but I could picture his smile.

“I don’t wanna be here right now.”

“Well you’re not apparating. Where are you?”

“Pansy’s.”

“I’ve never been there, nor would I be welcome, so I can’t apparate either.”

I sighed. “That’s so ridiculous.”

“It’s also true.”

“Ugh!” I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to get some feeling back in it. “Yeah, yeah it is.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be calling you.”

“You can call me if you want.”

“But I’m drunk. And it’s eight-thirty. On a weekday.”

“I’ll still pick up,” he said, and I could practically hear the shrug in his voice.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it.”

There was a lull in the conversation.

“Hey. Get some rest, ok?”

“Alright.”

“Water, bed. Eat some food. I mean it.”

“Alright.”

“Really?”

I sighed, but really, I was happy he was paying so much attention to me. “I promise. I’ll drink a whole bottle of water. Two, I’ll drink two.”

“Perfect. Will you text me when you wake up?”

“Why?”

“I’d like to know you’re fine.”

“Alright.”

“Okay.”

“Goodnight, Harry.”

“Goodnight. Don’t get too drunk. Remember, water.”

“Yes, mum.”

 

 _I live_ , I texted him the next morning from Pansy’s couch, my head pounding.

_How do you feel?_

_Perfectly peachy. Never better. Fantastic, actually._

_Really?_

I never responded. I felt far from fantastic.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I got back to my flat towards the middle of the afternoon, kicking my shoes off and peeling away layers, fully intending wait out the rest of my hangover by making myself a hot cup of tea and snuggling into bed with a book to read and the window to look out. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to do much except put the kettle on before I heard a knock at the door.

I opened it partway, the chain lock stopping me after a few inches, and, “Malfoy.”

I had an unexpected visitor. Again. I cursed myself for never putting up those confundus wards. 

“Tom. Always a pleasure.” He was even more twitchy than usual.

“Open the door. I need to talk to you.”

I closed it to undo the latch and swung it open again, still holding onto the side, positioning myself in between him and my apartment as though I was some sort of guard. “Yes?”

“Malfoy, I’m giving you two weeks.”

“For how much?”

“All of it.”

“What! You can’t be serious!” There was no way I could pay him everything I owed in two weeks.

“Look man, I owe people. You don’t even know. I need my money back.”

“And you’ll get it. But I don’t have it right now.”

Well, find a way,” he said harshly, getting in my face. I tried not to breathe in the smell of him and did my best not to move back. “I need it in two weeks.”

Dismayed, my mind ran through all the useless things I shouldn’t have bought. The coffees. The drinks. The ice cream. I should have known something like this would happen. I was too complacent. “What happens if you don’t get it?”

He raised his eyebrows and leered, resting his hand on an unpleasant bulge in his coat pocket. I'd watched enough television to hedge an educated guess on what it was. “You don’t wanna find out.” He stared at me as though he was going to try to fight—for a minute I thought he might actually throw a punch. He made like he was going to try to bowl me over, and even though he was shorter than me, I flinched. He turned and walked away.

Shit.

What the hell was I going to do?


	6. Knockturn Alley

  ~~Robbing a bank~~

~~Mugging someone~~

~~Shoplifting~~

~~Pick-pocketing~~

~~Prostituting~~

~~Using magic to confound Not-Tom and subsequently being imprisoned in Azkaban for three consecutive lifetimes~~

~~Asking Harry for help~~

~~Selling things~~

Getting Pansy involved

  ~~Hiring an assasin to kill Not-Tom~~

~~Becoming an assassin~~

~~Somehow stealing that gun I saw in Not-Tom's pocket and threatening him with it~~

~~Convincing Ryan to pay him off if I finally watch Star Wars~~

~~Becoming a bookie~~

~~Learning how to count cards~~

  ~~Gambling~~

Lying

 

That was it. That was my list. That was everything I could think of to make the extra money I needed.

I wasn’t brave enough to rob anyone and certainly not brave enough to act like I could really stomach killing someone. And though my situation was desperate, I wasn’t desperate enough to prostitute myself or ask Harry for help. Using magic against anyone was out of the question (and that unfortunately included magicking other objects to appear to be what I needed with the intent to distribute to Muggles). I could probably have learned how to count cards, if I’d had enough time, but that, along with money, was something I didn’t have. I didn’t trust my luck enough to gamble, and I had nothing to sell.

But I reiterate—flying dangerously close to being annoying—that I was a very talented liar. And so was Pansy.

I barged into her room the next day after I’d resigned myself to asking for her help. I knew it was desperate, and I felt terribly guilty, because she’d helped me so much before.  Especially because she still had guests over—Blaise and Theo had decided to spend the weekend. Luckily, by the time I’d convinced myself I needed help, they’d left for the day to see other old friends. I didn’t want anyone knowing about this predicament who I didn’t trust entirely. And I didn’t want Harry or Luna knowing because, honestly, I hated the thought of disappointing them. They were such terribly good people, and even if I didn’t know Harry so well, I knew he wouldn’t at all care for me participating in shady goings-on—or maybe I knew him too well and had too much of the past to cancel out, and that, truly, was the issue. Ether one could be used to explain it.

“I can ask Millie and the Greengrass sisters if they can pitch in,” she said. “You could ask Harry. I’m sure he’d fall all over himself to save you, with that weird savior complex he seems to have. And I bet he’d convince the Weasel and Granger to help him too.”

“No,” I said. “I want as few people as possible involved.”

“Draco,” she started exasperatedly, but I interrupted her.

“Do you know how embarrassing this is?” I asked. “My family used to be feared! We used to have old money! Now I can’t even pay off some twitchy Muggle who doesn’t know how to shave without nicking himself or take a proper shower. Nobody will know about this.” I held out my hand to her. “Deal?”

She looked at my extended hand resentfully, but sighed after a moment and took it. “If you really must.”

“I really must.”

“I can’t think of anything you haven’t already told me.”

“I know, neither can I.”

“Except…”

“Don’t be coy, Pansy.”

“What are your thoughts about Knockturn Alley?”

“That I should stay away from it, because I don’t want to be shut in the same place as my father.”

“I’m sure you can find someone down there willing to give the Malfoy heir a solid loan.”

“Loans are what got me into this mess. And I’m not an heir if I have nothing to inherit.”

“You know reputation goes a long way.”

“I do. It’s what chased me out of wizarding society.”

“I’m just saying, I might be able to put you in touch with a guy.”

“I can’t get a loan, Pans,” I told her, trying not to show how frustrated I was. “I have _no money._ ”

“You could work for him, though. He could give you your payment now and you could work it off.”

“Like some sort of indentured servant?”

“Indentured servitude is better than being killed by a _Muggle_.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t kill me.”

“You said you thought he had a gun in his pocket?”

“He could have been happy to see me.”

“In his coat pocket?”

“Touché.”

Pansy raised her eyebrows at me. “I can firecall my guy right now, before Blaise and Theo get back.” They were sleeping on the sofas in Pansy’s living room. “I’m sure he’d meet with you.”

“What does he even do?”

“An assortment of things. I’m sure he can find something for you to busy yourself with.”

“What sort of things?”

“The illegal sort of things.”

“Well,” I huffed, “I figured that.”

“He doesn’t tell me much,” she said petulantly. “Would you like my help or not.”

I sighed and scrubbed my hands through my hair, fingers digging into my scalp. “I suppose. I guess it’s necessary. Go, call him.” I stared at the floor miserably. I heard her walk over to the door. “And thank you,” I called rather bitterly, my manners getting the better of me despite my sullenness.

 

 _This is a bad idea, this is a bad idea, this is a bad, bad, **bad** idea_ , was the mantra that ran through my head as I wrapped my coat tighter around myself and hesitantly turned off of Diagon. I started shuffling down the stairs to Knockturn, my feet unsteady in the shadows of the evening.

 _I shouldn’t be here_.

The shops were all much too close together, and there weren’t nearly enough streetlamps—that, I knew, was purposeful. There was something that was just not right about conducting bad business in well-lit spaces. Too many chances someone might recognize you.

All the darkness made me feel claustrophobic. It reminded me of the Dark Lord, of how he liked to keep all the rooms in the Manor darkened, just on the off chance someone brought something reflective near him. His face was horrifying, and he knew it. He didn’t like being reminded. He killed my favorite house-elf because she brought him a shining clean platter that showed him a distorted version of his face, red eyes and all. I shivered again and pressed my arms close to my sides, my hands shoved in my pockets, one fist curled around the large pocketknife I’d bought right after my unwelcome visitor had threatened me.

The mist from that morning’s rain had risen up into a ghost-like fog. Of course it couldn’t have been a sunny day. But then, if it was, I would have to deal with people. And that was more frightful than anything the weather could throw at me.

“Fourteenth house on the left,” I muttered to myself, willing my legs to move faster and wincing at the sound my shoes made on the cobblestones.

I thought I heard something behind me and whirled around. I looked from side to side, my eyes finally landing on a cat rummaging through the trash. I sighed and shook myself, telling myself that being jumpy only made this worse. I had to act like everything was fine. If I acted like it was fine, maybe I could convince myself it was for a little while.

I wanted Harry. I wanted Harry next to me so badly in that moment. I wanted him to put his hand on my shoulder and tell me this was a bad idea, lead my out by my hand and give me a hug and bring me back to his tiny flat with his worn-out couch and his sweaters with holes in them and tell me I was safe, that he’d fix everything. I hated that I wanted him so badly. I should have been able to handle this on my own. I shouldn’t have needed Pansy’s help. If I was really a Malfoy I would have figured this whole thing out already, instead of cringing down Knockturn Alley looking like some shabbily dressed hunchback begging for indentured servitude to some corrupt pathetic excuse for a pureblood whose lineage was nowhere near as impressive as my own.

“ _Imperio_ ,” I heard whispered behind me, a split second before I felt it.

Like being plunged in cold water. My muscles tensed in that way I’d hoped to forget, trying to fight off an invisible attacker. I felt someone else’s presence in my head like a parasite, spreading rot to every thought it touched. I tried to focus on it enough to push it out. I tried to drown out all my panic and force it away, lash out at it, turn the curse and make it rebound to the castor like Aunt Bella had tried to make me do when she’d done this to me so many times.

The insidious darkness of the curse tried to lull me into complacency. It tried to convince me there was nothing to fight, that everything would be better if I relented. But I knew how this went. And I knew if I let my attacker in he would not stop controlling me. I could not have someone else in control of me anymore. Not again. Not ever.

Sweat poured down my face and my head felt like it was being torn in two. Lightning bolts flashed before my eyes every time I tried to move, sending burning white streaks shooting through my vision.

 _No_ , I thought as hard as I could. _No. No. NO!_

I could feel my attacker winning. I tried to employ everything Aunt Bella and Severus had taught me about Occlumency, but my skills were not nearly as sharp as before. Becoming unused to my life being in constant threat had dulled my technique. But what I lacked, I made up for in crude, brute determination.

I curled my fingered around the knife in my pocket until I felt blood on my palm. I focused on the pain and threw it at them. I felt the castor retreat and then surge back again, redoubling their efforts.

**_NO!_ **

I would not let them win.

I finally had control of my life. For the first time in my life, I had control. I was not letting that go. I was not—

I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head, and as lights flashed in front of my eyes, black blanketed my surroundings.

Though the ground surged up to meet me, I don’t remember hitting it.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	7. House Arrest

 I woke up to a splitting headache.

My eyes fluttered open and immediately squeezed shut. What meager light was there tore through them like a knife. I held my hands over my face and gradually lifted myself up, stiff and sore, the material beneath me hard and unyielding.

Once my eyes adjusted I found myself inside a cell, the material I was laying on wood from the bunk. There was no mattress. There were no pillows. A toilet sat in the corner looking like it hadn’t been cleaned since it was installed. There was no light save for the dim, watery yellow casted from the hall through a lone and dingy window on my door. Everything was either stone or uninviting metal. I reached for my wand to twirl in my fingers, a nervous habit.

 _I don’t have my wand_.

I shuddered, and my head hurt even more. It was like I was eighteen again, and I was in a holding cell, awaiting trial. But at least then I knew what I did.

I slowly got up and walked over to the door, squinting. I must have had a concussion, looking back on it. Every movement made me feel nauseous. Every sound made me want to whimper, and any light pierced directly into my skull.

I knocked on the door, wincing. “Hello?”

_Knock, knock._

“Is anyone there? Excuse me?”

_Knock._

“Hello? Anyone?”

I stood at the window for about a minute, my eyes watering. No one walked down the shadowy hallway. There was a door like mine across the corridor, but metal was pushed across the window. Because of the limitations of the little square, I couldn’t look left or right.

I didn’t know if anyone was there and if they were just ignoring me, or if I was totally alone. I hoped someone was there. Even if they were only there because someone higher-up thought that I was a threat, at least I wasn’t totally forgotten and helpless.

A wave of nausea hit me and I stumbled back to the wooden bunk. I lied down on my side, feeling ready to vomit, and thankfully lost consciousness again not long after.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                                 

_Knock, knock._

“Hello?”

“Is anybody down here?”

_Knock._

“Anyone?”

 

 

_Bang._

“Hey! I’m hungry!”

 

 

_Bang!_

“I don’t understand!”

_BANG!_

“You can’t keep me here for no reason!”

“Let me out!”

 

 

 

 _Knock_.

“Please.”

“Please, someone tell me what’s going _on_.”

 

I banged on the door until my head couldn’t take it, and I ran over to the toilet with the world tilting on its axis to promptly shove my face in it.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I counted everything.

The nails in the wood. The scratches in the ceiling. The freckles on my arms.

 When I finished one, I went to the next one and started again. Over and over and over. I counted in English and then in French and then in a mix of both. I counted in my head at first and then out loud when the silence became too oppressive.

A few times a little slat in the bottom of my door opened and a tray with food on it was pushed through, but when I went to the door to talk with someone, no one was there. It must have been some sort of automated magic, or maybe a house elf too short for me to see. Either way, no one responded when I called out.

I tried not to think about what might be happening outside the cell.

Where was Harry? What was he doing? Was he looking for me? Did he know I was in here? Did he care? Had word gotten back to him about where I’d been when I was attacked and he no longer trusted me? Had he ever?

Where was Pansy? Was she worried? Did she know what was going on? Did she know who attacked me? Did she know why? Was it just because I was me, or was it something more elaborate? Was the endgame of it all just to get me to rot in prison? Was she trying to get me out?

And poor Luna. I was supposed to have a coffee date with her yesterday. Or today. I couldn’t tell—I couldn’t keep track of the days in the cell, with nothing but the unwavering watery yellow to base my assumptions off of.

I’d gone missing. Would I still have my job when I got out? Was I even going to get out? Maybe they were going to try me again for all my war crimes and put me in Azkaban anyway, no matter that they’d ruled me innocent four years ago. They could do whatever they wanted with me. My family had no power, and though I hardly had any friends, I had many, many enemies.

 _I can’t think like this_.

 

_One. Two. Three…_

_Quatre. Cinq. Six. Sept. Huit. Neuf. Dix. Onze…_

_Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen…_

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The door opened and light flooded my cell. My eyes watered and my head screamed with the shriek the hinges made.

“Come with me.”

It was a female voice, steely and hard to match the expression on her face which I could barely see through slitted eyes. I stumbled upright and cautiously crossed the few steps to the exit.

“Your hands,” she said, and I held them out. She placed heavy shackles on my wrists, and led me out with a firm hand on my bicep. If I hadn’t felt so relieved to be getting out I would have been worried about where I was going, or defenseless from the chains.

“What have I done?” I asked, making my voice as cold and unwavering as I could. She didn’t answer me.

“Why am I here?”

“Shut up.”

“What crime have I committed? You have no right to detain me.”

“Malfoy, you’ve committed many crimes, of which many people are not yet ready to forgive you.”

“I was acquitted.”

“Apparently not everyone agreed. Now stop asking questions.”

So it was what I thought. I was going to be tried as a war criminal again. My attack was probably some Auror taking things too far. And of course they would get away with it, be heralded as a hero, even, for leading me out of my hiding spot. Because of course he must have something to hide, besides just himself.

Once a criminal, always a criminal. Even if I try to do well, I’m still dirty.

I took a shuddering breath and squared my shoulders as I prepared myself for what was next. I expected the trial room again, in front of the Wizengamot, maybe, if it was considered high profile enough. But we took a turn I didn’t recognize and I thought maybe this would be quick, maybe they’d already decided, maybe they were just shipping me straight to Azkaban then and there, no trial necessary. My stomach turned and I felt like I was going to vomit. I couldn’t see straight, and it wasn’t because of the concussion. I tried to calm myself down and breathe normally before I got caught in a full-blown panic attack.

One foot in front of the other. _One, two, three, four, five_ …

We opened a door, and it got even brighter. I had to squint, but who I saw made my eyes wide—and subsequently cover them in pain.

“Why is he shackled?”

_Harry? Harry’s here? For me?_

“Protocol. He’s potentially dangerous.”

“I thought it was decided that he was a victim based on his injuries.”

“It was still his wand. That doesn’t rule him out. He could have been injured after casting the spell.”

“If you really believed that, you wouldn’t be releasing him into my custody.”

“I’m releasing him into your custody because I trust your judgment and I think with Weasley’s oversight it will be a good way to ease yourself into the Auror training program again.”

“Hm.” He sounded like he wanted to say more, but held his tongue. My eyes finally adjusted enough to open them again, to see him looking over Kingsley Shacklebolt skeptically. His posture wasn’t the casual slouch I was used to—his shoulders were square and his hands weren’t tucked into his pockets, a show of authority and over-confidence that I’d almost forgotten was so intrinsic to Harry’s being.

My guard unchained my hands and gave me a little push on the back to step forward. Shacklebolt turned and dismissed her before looking at me, his expression stern and his voice hard.

“I’m placing you under house arrest,” he said, ignoring the sputtering exclamations coming from my mouth. “We are relocating you to a different flat in a non-apparition zone, with a non-traceable address, to ensure your safety. Accommodations will be made for your guard. Wards will be placed along the doorways and in the windows, and I will personally be alerted if you or any unauthorized personnel cross them. Do you understand?”

“No!” I blurted. “No I bloody don’t! Why am I under house arrest?”

“It is for your own safety, until whoever attacked you is caught.”

“Bullshit! If you’re going to arrest me, you should have kept me in that cell! I shouldn’t be punished just because I was a victim!”

“ _Malfoy_ ,” Harry said sharply. Even his expression was different, closed. My jaw tightened and I gritted my teeth. I ran over what he’d said in my head and hoped I wasn’t interpreting it incorrectly when I thought _he_ thought I didn’t have something nefarious planned. Because the expression on his face was intentionally intimidating, the same sort of one he used to wear back at Hogwarts. “I will explain what happened to the best of my abilities what’s going on once we get out of here.”

I looked at him down my nose, a feat since we were very close in height and my stomach felt hollow and my teeth felt fuzzy and I hadn’t showered or eaten in Merlin knows how long. “Where is my wand?”

I looked to him and then to Shacklebolt, who said, “It’s in Ministry custody as evidence from the crime scene.”

“ _What_?”

“I’ll explain once we get to the safe house,” Harry repeated, putting a hand on my arm. “Thank you, Minister,” he said, nodding to his counterpart.

“I’ll have Weasley officially check in on you tomorrow morning,” he replied, a wry smirk twisting his mouth. “Though unofficially I’m guessing he’ll check in tonight.”

Harry laughed as some of the professionalism left his posture. “You know him too well. Good night, Kingsley.”

He nodded, and Harry floo’d us away.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

We left the Ministry, had to go out on the street, and ducked into an alley to apparate. We appeared in another alley and subsequently had to walk three blocks before stopping in front of the most rickety, dilapidated house I had ever seen.

“Home sweet home,” Harry muttered, shoving the old iron key into the hole. It was the first thing he’d said in the entire walk there. The door swung open with a creak and a cloud of dust came wafting out.

“What is this place?” I croaked in between coughs, looking around at the old wood and grandiose staircase, now fallen into disrepair.

“My inheritance,” he said. “Though technically it should have been yours, actually, if things had gone diff—”

_“Blood traitors!”_

I winced and scrambled to cover my ears against the shrieking.

“Shit—sorry—”

“ _Filth! Disgusting, horrendous, rotting filth! Defilement on the once proud House of Black! What poor—”_ the voice cut off abruptly as Harry wrestled the curtains shut on the portrait right next to the door.

“Sorry,” he said in an exhale of relief. “Now you’ve met Wallaburga.”

“What?” The name sounded vaguely familiar.

“Welcome to Number 12, Grimmauld Place,” he said, spreading his arms. “This is gonna have to be your new home for a while.” He sighed. “Sorry for the mess. I try not to come here unless I have to.”

I cocked my head. “Do you…own this house?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“An un-traceable safehouse? One that used to belong to my mother’s family, if the portrait is correct?”

“Ah…yeah.” He scratched his head. “It’s a long story.”

We were alone, in a house that was apparently his, and he hadn’t answered any of my questions yet. He hadn’t said anything. And his posture was still so tense, and his manner was still and brusque, which made me realize he hadn’t been putting it on for Shacklebolt, but for me.

I had so many questions. They were making my head pound even more. “What does everyone think happen?” I asked at the same time he asked, “What were you doing in Knockturn Alley?”

We stared at each other for a beat. I raised my chin high with a confidence I didn’t feel and waited for him to answer my question.

“Well…” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “You were found in the middle of Knockturn Alley, alone and with a blunt force wound to the head and your wand clutched in your hand.”

“Shacklebolt said something about some sort of spell?”

He stared at me hard. Part of me wanted to cow under the intensity of his eyes and the puzzlement and hurt and anger in his face, but a larger part of me wanted answers, and so I put on the blandest expression I could and waited.

“The Dark Mark.”

My mouth was dry and my breathing stopped. “What?” I asked hoarsely.

“It was directly over you.”

“But I…” I began. “I wasn’t dead. And nobody else was either! And you…he’s dead, you killed him! Everyone saw it!”

Harry nodded. “He’s dead, and almost everyone who was a Death Eater is in prison or dead. With one exception.”

I recoiled. It was hard to breathe. “I didn’t do this.”

“It was cast by your wand,” he said quietly.

“Harry, I didn’t do this,” I pleaded. “Harry, please. I never wanted…I never…I…”

“Never wanted what?” he asked.

“I never wanted to be involved!” I yelled, my desperation heating to frustration and bitterness. “I never had a choice! He was going to kill me! He was going to kill my family! I had to survive!”

“You said you tortured people,” he said dully. I would have liked the accusation better had it been flung at me instead. At least then I’d feel no resignation.

“I did what I had to do,” I replied coldly. “Take me back to the Ministry. I’ll go back to that holding cell now.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” Harry sighed again. “Because I convinced Shacklebolt that someone else could have cast it. Someone who had to be close to the Death Eaters, to know the spell. That would give them motive for incriminating you, because you gave me your wand in the final battle. And that would give reason for your injuries.”

“You did?”

“It doesn’t take you off the suspect list,” he said quickly, “but it does mean the list is longer than just one person.”

“I…” I swallowed hard. “Thank you, Harry.”

He shook his head. “Draco Malfoy, saying thank you.”

“I’ve said thank you to you before.” _I think_.  
            “I know, but the novelty of it never ceases to amaze me.” He started backtracking into the kitchen. “Tea?”

“Ah. Sure.” I itched my Mark, remembering where we were.

“You can tell me what happened as I make it,” he said, and started fiddling around in the cupboards as I recounted everything I remembered to the best of my ability.

“That’s a relief,” Harry muttered in the quiet after I was finished, setting a mug in front of me. I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Unless you’re lying to me.”

“I’m not.”

“I hope so. I want to be right about you.”

“You want to be right about everything, Potter.” It had no heat. It was teasing, which I hoped he would respond as well to as he had before everything I’d appeared to have been was thrown in question.

He snickered and took a drink. I exhaled in relief.

“They were probably trying to control you to cast it yourself,” he said after a while. “That way they or someone else could have come up as a witness and told the Wizengamot they saw you do it. When that failed they must have hit you.”

I nodded, pensive. Who would want this?

I had a few hunches. Some of Father’s old friends, maybe. For now, though, I didn’t have the energy to voice it. I still felt that strange mixture of nauseous and hungry, and was going to say something before I remembered something much more important.

“Etty!” I exclaimed. “My cat! I have to go get her.”

“I already did,” Harry said. “Well, Luna did. When you didn’t show up for coffee she got worried and went to your flat to find it empty. She took the cat back to hers and told me you were missing. I went to Kingsley, and there you were. And I also have your phone,” he said, handing it to me. "The Ministry didn't know what to make of it."

“How long was I there?” I asked, slipping my phone into my pocket.

“The Dark Mark showed up three days ago, so since then, I would guess.”

I cocked my head. “Do you think they would have let me out if you hadn’t come?”

He bit his lip. “…Eventually.”

I sighed. “I could really use a shower. And food. In that order.”

Harry nodded. “I’ve already sent Kreacher to get your things. I’ll get some takeout.”

“Who is Kreacher?”

“My house-elf.”

“You have a house elf? But what about Granger with that whole vomit campaign?”

“S.P.E.W. And Kreacher wants to help, now that we’re on good terms.”

“Hm.” I shrugged. “Alright. I’ll go then.”

I stood, and so did Harry. “I’ll show you your room.”

The stairs complained as we ascended and the macabre display in the hallway nearly gave me a heart attack. “ _Why_ do you have those?”

“Like I said, I don’t come here often,” he muttered.

“Is that a _troll leg_?”

“This is your room,” he said, waving me into a bedroom slightly less dusty than the rest. “I told Kreaher to put your belongings there. It’s just across the hall from mine. The bathroom is down the hall on your right and there’s a towel under the sink for you.”

“Thanks.”

“And—” he went to put a hand on my shoulder, but I moved away.

“Please don’t touch me,” I muttered hurriedly. I had trusted him before, and I knew that he was the reason I wasn’t still rotting in some cell, but I felt awkward and ill at east, especially now that I was so obviously unsuited for his attention. Everyone, myself included, had been reminded by this of just what sort of person I was. Also I hadn’t showered in three days, which didn’t help the situation.

“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling back. “For that, for this situation. For thinking you may have been guilty.”

“You don’t know I’m not,” I said harshly.

“I don’t think you are,” he said steadily back. “I’ll be back in about half an hour if you need anything.” He turned and left, down the stairs and out the door.

I sighed and scrubbed my limp hair with my hands, blinking away my tiredness and trying to ignore my headache. Hot water was what I needed right now. And if I cried a little bit, well, no one would know. Heaven knows I needed to.


	8. Great Aunt Wallaburga

The shower actually worked, miraculously. It didn’t seem as run down as the rest of the place—at least, the showerhead didn’t spew black muck like I expected it to. And it was decently hot even without magic.  
I met Kreacher on my way back to my room. I wish I could say I didn’t scream.  
He was the oldest—and by far the ugliest—house elf I’d ever seen. But he took my reaction in stride.  
“Mister Malfoy,” he said, bowing so low his long nose nearly touched the ground. “It is good to have a Black back in this house.”  
“Oh?” I asked cautiously, feeling vulnerable, dripping wet and in a towel. “Why is that?”  
“This is Grimmauld Place,” he explained to me. “The most ancient and noble house of Black. You have been here before, when you were very small.”  
“I was?” I’d thought the dark halls held some familiarity, but I figured it was just from too much time spent stuck in the shadowy manor, infested by the Dark Lord himself. It had the same sort of unpleasant aura about it.  
“Yes, with your mother. You were barely four years old.”  
“You remember that?”  
“Kreacher remembers much,” he said with an unsettling leer, tugging on one of his ears.  
“Ah,” I said faintly. “Well, I must—I’d like to—” I motioned to my room.  
“Of course,” he said, bowing again before apparating with a crack. I released my breath and hurried into what was to be my quarters, not feeling much better.  
This would really have to change. Everything was dusty and dark. I dressed as fast as I could and threw open the curtains. Dust floated through the air so thickly it seemed foggy. I decided to explore the rest of the house before deciding what to do. It still hadn’t hit me fully that this dilapidated hovel was to be my home. It was enough to make me miss my old apartment, even with Not-Tom hovering over my shoulder.  
Every room was roughly the same; coated with thick layers of dust and enshrouded in dark fabric. The wood floors and walls, made from rich dark wood, would have been beautiful if they had been kept up with properly. Many of the portraits had dark cloth thrown over them, and I shied away from touching them, remembering Wallaburga’s enthusiastic greeting.  
I found a large piano in one room and really felt it was quite a shame it had fallen into disrepair. In another I found the walls to be lined in bookshelves, the volumes on them almost entirely comprised of research about the Dark Arts. It reminded me of the restricted section of Hogwarts, and I hoped fervently that none of the books would scream at me. In another room, I found a wardrobe that shook violently on occasion, which I quickly left alone.  
Maybe I had been here before. Some of the rooms seemed familiar, in a vague and distant sort of way. I figured there was one way to check. It this house was Black, that meant I was probably related to the people in those portraits. And I had already made friends with one.  
I hesitantly crept over to the front door, as if being silent would not enrage the portrait when I pulled back the curtain. I braced myself, wincing with one hand on an ear, and did just that.  
“Defilement to the house of Black! Scum! Absolute, intolerable wretched—“  
“Aunt Wallaburga!” I shouted. “It’s me! Draco! Draco Malfoy!”  
“Draco?” she asked, her demeanor changing instantly. “My dear little dragon? Oh, I should have recognized you by that beautiful hair, just like your father. Darling, you’ve grown so much!”  
“Yeah,” I said warily, running a hand through my hair. “It’s been a while. A lot has happened.”  
“Oh, I know,” she said. “You don’t need to tell me. Look at this house!” she wailed tearfully. “Overrun by half-breeds and mudbloods! This place used to be so marvelous, and now it’s destroyed.”  
I grit my teeth, knowing I had to play along or else she would start screaming again. “Well, I’ll be here from now on,” I said placatingly.  
“Oh, dear, that’s so good to hear,” she said, leaning in and clasping her hands. “Have you kicked out that wretched Potter boy? His family used to be so respectable, before they became Muggle-lovers. I can’t tolerate people like him at all.”  
“Ah, no, Auntie,” I said hesitantly. “After the war, our family had some trouble, and now, somehow, this place belongs to Potter. But,” I said hurriedly, seeing the look on her face and attempting to cut off another wailing fit, “I’m going to try to restore this place, for the time being. Since Potter obviously hasn’t done much.”  
“But you will stay?”  
“Yes.”  
“Good,” she said, adding a conspiratorial wink. “We’ll clear the filth out of here then soon enough.”  
I bit my lip. “Sure.”  
We talked for a while more, as Auntie did seem very lonely. She may have been wretched and a bigot, but she was family, and I could at least give her some company she could tolerate for the first time in more than a decade. Besides, I’d been just as bad as her not so long ago. It was learned behavior. I’d just had the opportunity to un-learn it.  
After a while I begged off, claiming that all the socializing was making me tired, and retreated into the kitchen and made myself tea.  
“Kreacher can do that, Mister Malfoy,” he said, apparating directly behind me with a loud crack. I jumped a foot and nearly spilled boiling water down my front. My headache, which had receded, came back full force.  
“No, thank you,” I said civilly. “I’d prefer to do it myself.” After years of being a waiter, it felt strange to have a house elf at my beck and call again. I wished he would leave. I needed some space to think all of this through, and frankly, he scared me a bit.  
“As you wish,” he said, and scurried through a small door I hadn’t seen before. I heard the padding of feet on a staircase, and realized the elf had retreated into the basement. I sighed in relief and get out a mug, washing it thoroughly as best I could without magic and fixing myself a strong cup of tea.  
I sat for a while, hunched in the kitchen, looking at all the dust and mold and trying very hard not to touch anything or breathe too deeply. I couldn’t think about getting attacked any further, or I would work myself into a panic. But I could still be bitter about losing my wand, again.  
I heard the door open and didn’t bother moving. This was an untraceable location, after all. Not just anyone would be walking through.  
“Oh. Hi,” he said, carrying two bags of very spicy-smelling food that made my mouth water. “I hope you like curry. I didn’t know how well you tolerate spice, so I got a bunch of different things.”  
“Very considerate,” I said. “How much do I owe you?”  
“You don’t.”  
I sighed. I wanted to argue that I didn’t need his pity, but after the time I’ve spent with him, I know little bits of thoughtfulness aren’t about pity. It’s just what he does. And it’s not like money is an issue, not for him anyway.  
“Thank you,” I watched him tiredly as he set everything out of the bags. He’d gotten plastic forks and spoons from the place too, and just started eating out of the containers.  
“I don’t really trust Kreacher’s cleaning ability just yet,” he told me as explanation, wincing. “I’ve been having him over at Hogwarts in the kitchens mostly, because I didn’t want him to be bored and shut up here like he had been, but he’s still a bit rusty.” He shrugged. “He pitched a bit of a fit when I first suggested it, but I figured it’s better if he has something to do. Now that he’s used to it it’s not so bad for him.”  
I nodded. “He’s a bit…” I hesitated, trying to find a polite descriptor.  
“Creepy?” Harry asked with a grin.  
I laughed quietly. “He must scare the students from getting late night snacks.”  
Harry’s smile widened. “You get used to it. I just had him stick around today and maybe a bit longer in case we need anything in particular. After that, unless you really have need for him, I can send him back to Hogwarts.”  
“Unless he’s planning to dust, he can go. I think I’d rather be alone, really,” I said, tugging my sweater around me.  
“I doubt he’ll dust,” Harry said. “I don’t think he has since long before I inherited the house. Did you know how to get into the kitchens after hours too?”  
“You tickle the pear,” I said, as though it was obvious. “What, not everyone knows that?”  
“I didn’t know about it until third or fourth year, I forget which one exactly,” he said.  
“Well, your observational skills were always so impressive.”  
“When did you find out?”  
“I eavesdropped on a group of fifth years when I was in second year. Crabbe, Goyle and I would always sneak out and get chocolate buns and tea in the middle of the night.”  
“I always thought we were the only ones who knew that,” he mused.  
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked incredulously. “You thought the Gryffindors were the first ones to find that out? I would have placed bets on the Ravenclaws, personally. And the Slytherins shortly after. We may not be the smartest, but we always know things.” I picked one of the nearest cartons and started digging in, ravenous. It was some sort of shrimp and green curry mix, and it was delicious.  
“And then the Gryffindors?”  
“Of course. Heaven knows, when any house gets beaten by Hufflepuff, Hogwarts may shut down entirely.”  
Harry shrugged. “Hufflepuff wasn’t that bad.”  
I snorted. “Hufflepuff was a joke. Dressing in yellow just made it more obvious. They all looked like some heinous sort of bee.”  
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s rather judgmental.”  
“Think about who you’re talking to, Potter.” I help a hand up to my mouth as I talked, trying to eat as much in as little time as possible.  
“The Malfoy I used to know would never talk with his mouth full. That’s not good table manners.”  
“It’s taken a while, but I’ve learned there are more important things in the world than table manners.” I said, pointing my plastic fork at him. It felt so good to be full on good food again. “Will I be able to go to me flat and collect the rest of my belongings? I also need to sort out a few other things too, before I start living here permanently.”  
“Like what?”  
“I need to take some money out of my Muggle bank account so I can buy some things. I need my toiletries. If Shacklebolt was really serious about this house arrest shit, I need to tell my boss I won’t be able to come in.”  
“Would it be alright if I said I already did that last bit?”  
“Excuse me?”  
“Kingsley doesn’t want you leaving the house without either me or Ron near you at all times. I figured your boss would want to talk to you privately, and that would create problems. So I talked to him myself.” He winced. “Sorry, that was probably overstepping some boundaries in hindsight.”  
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “What did you tell him, exactly?”  
“That you wouldn’t be able to work for an indefinite amount of time because you were recovering from injuries after being assaulted in a back alley.”  
“Did he believe it?”  
Harry blinked. “Considering it’s what actually happened, I’d be surprised if he didn’t.” He smacked his forehead and rocked back in his chair, nearly tipping over. “Oh!”  
“Are you quite alright?” I asked, alarmed.  
“No, it’s just, I’m an idiot. Are you hurt, or did they have any Healers look at you while you were in holding?”  
“Nobody came to see me,” I said, deigning not to comment about the idiot part of his outburst.  
His brows furrowed. “Your file said you’d been hit in the back of the head.”  
“I’m fine.”  
“Does it still hurt?”  
I shrugged. I didn’t want to ask him for help, but it really did hurt quite a lot.  
He huffed. “You shouldn’t have to be in pain for no reason. They should have sent a medic to see you.” He seemed very upset. I knew better than to think it was because of me, though. Saint Potter probably didn’t like to see anyone suffer.  
“Victim or not, I’m still a Malfoy, Potter.”  
He looked like he was about to say something, but decided better of it. “Is it just on the back of your head?”  
“Yeah.”  
“May I…?” He gestured to the injury. “I learned basic healing as part of my Auror training.”  
The prospect of not having a headache for the first time in days made me too relieved to respond with my normal ire, so I simply sighed and said, “Yes.”  
He moved behind me and ran his fingers gently through my hair, searching for the injury. I hissed when he found it.  
“Sorry,” he said, muttering an incantation, and I felt his magic wash over me.  
Healing is more intimate than I’m used to. With jinxes and curses it’s just that one flash of closeness, like a fist to the face. But this was like a sort of caress, almost. It made me want more, and it made me distinctly uncomfortable because of it. I didn’t know where I stood with him after everything that had happened. I felt like I was manipulating him somehow even though I really did need a healer, knowing I was reveling in this closeness so much and he was clueless. If he felt anything at all, it was probably suspicion. After all, all he had was my word and my injury in my favor. My background made a much more compelling argument.  
He stepped away and I cleared my throat trying to will away the flush I knew was coloring my cheeks. I slumped in my seat, able to fully relax for the first time in days. “Thank you.”  
“You’re welcome. I can bring you to your old flat tomorrow, if you’d like, but I’ll need to stay with you for the whole time you’re out of the house.”  
I nodded. “That’s fine. I only have to grab a few things.” The non-essentials. Sentimental knickknacks that nobody else would think to bring alone. Things that I certainly didn’t want Kreacher rifling through.  
I yawned. “I’m very tired,” I started. “But before I go to bed, would you mind spelling the dust out of my room? It makes it hard to breathe.”  
He raised his eyebrows, but then, “Oh, right. You don’t have a wand.”  
“You’re very perceptive.”  
He shrugged. “I thought you already figured that out.”  
“I did. I was just re-telling you, in case you forgot.”  
“You’re truly a pleasure to be around,” he said with a wry smile.  
“I try.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up the next morning to hear goings-on in the kitchen. I rubbed my hand over my face and yawned, trying not to look at the elf heads as I walked down the stairs in my nightshirt and ratty sweats.  
Incorrectly, I saw then, I’d assumed the sounds to be Kreacher. Instead, Harry was making eggs and bacon on the stove, puttering around by the tea kettle.  
I scuffed my feet across the floor loudly and on purpose, so my entrance wouldn’t startle him.  
“Hey,” he said, turning around. “Care for breakfast?” He was already dressed, but instead of robes, he was wearing a blue pair of Muggle work pants and a frayed red T-shirt with a small hole towards the bottom hem.  
“Sure, thanks,” I said, plucking at the hem of my shirt and taking a seat at the table, tucking my feet underneath me. “Is there anything I could do?”  
“No, it’s alright. I’m almost done.”  
“I figured it would be Kreacher in here, not you.”  
“Nah, I’ve sent him off again. Unless you’d like him to be here?”  
“No!” I said strongly, then laughed a bit awkwardly. “Sorry, thanks, but…no.”  
He laughed. “Trust me, I understand. When I first got him it was a nightmare. He’s much better now, but his social skills are still somewhat…lacking.”  
I nodded. “You don’t have to be here, though. I can take care of myself fine.”  
Harry shrugged. “It’s not entirely my decision,” he said. “Ron and I are supposed to protect you.”  
“Where is the Weasel?”  
“He’s busy with Rose,” he said. “And I’ve explained to him that we already know each other somewhat. And don’t call him the Weasel.”  
“How did he take that?” I asked, ignoring the last bit.  
“Hogwarts was a while ago,” Harry aid with another shrug. “We all sacrificed a lot so we wouldn’t have to deal with the same shitty prejudices that got us in that situation in the first place. He’s willing to be civil. But only if you are.”  
I didn’t bother hiding my petulance. “I can be civil.”  
Harry laughed and didn’t answer. I glared at his back.  
He handed me a plate. “I’ll be gone for a bit because I’m going with Ron to look at the site where you were attacked.”  
“I thought Luna told me once you weren’t an Auror.”  
He took a big bite and talked around it, his hand in front of his mouth. “I’m not, technically.” He swallowed and moved his fork around on his plate. “I got enough work done to be cleared at Junior Auror status, but because of what happened in the war and everything, they were willing to allow certain integral figured in the fighting to be put on a fast track to full Auror status. It’s how Ron rose so fast. I was supposed to be with him, but it was too much, too fast, and it’s not really as though I had to work, so…” he trailed off.  
I nodded. How fortunate, that he was wealthy enough to never work a day in his life if he chose not to. How noble that he decided to keep fighting anyway. At least, that’s what I would have thought before, sarcastically, of course. But after being around him, I thought a little harder about it.  
“Why did you even want to become an Auror?” I asked him.  
“I…” he shoved some more food in his mouth and we ate in silence for a while. I figured he was just never going to answer my question.  
“It was the only thing I was good at, really.”  
“But did you enjoy it? Catching dark wizards?”  
“Not really,” he shrugged. “But it was the only thing I was good at.”  
I shook my head. “That’s bullshit.”  
He raised his eyebrows and held out his hand to take my plate away to the sink.  
“You’re good at flying. Nowhere near as good as me, mind you, but you’re not bad by any means,” I said, pretending to be invested in my cuticles and suppressing the smile that wanted to twist my lips.  
“Of course,” he said sarcastically. “I have to be off, but we’ll go and collect your things later, alright?”  
“No rush.”  
“Alright. Also, it’d be best if you please don’t leave the house while I’m gone. Also please don’t use that at some sort of reverse-psychology encouragement to actually do the opposite of what I’m asking.”  
“Careful,” I warned, feeling piqued. “You’re getting dangerously close to patronizing me, and I don’t respond well to that.”  
“I didn’t mean…”  
“I know I’m in danger. I know someone means me harm. But just because they got one good shot in doesn’t mean I’m entirely useless,” I shot at him “I was just rusty.”  
He raised his eyebrows. “But just to be on the safe side?”  
“I’ll stay here,” I sighed. “I’m not a Gryffindor. I know how to keep from throwing myself into every bad situation I can find.”  
He snorted. “I’ll be back later, just send me your patronus if you want anything.” He made like he was going to touch my shoulder, but then thought better of it and withdrew his hand. He grabbed his keys and his coat and was out the door with a hasty “Goodbye” flung over his shoulder.  
“Ah.” I muttered to myself. I hadn’t had time to tell him I still couldn’t make one. Or, more likely, I’d had too much pride to.  
Well, if I was going to be stuck here, I figured I might as well start cleaning up. I’d rather spend another night out on a park bench than live in squalor.


	9. Packing

I’d finished about a quarter of the front room when Harry returned. I put all the heavy black curtains in a pile to burn, because I didn’t know what kind of swarming insect or creature is living in them, but whatever they were bit me hard on my forehead and left cheek, and now I had some raised little welts which I was not going to think about because I needed to be perpetually beautiful, especially when I started getting frustrated and started hating everything. Which was how it was beginning to turn, right now.

I’d tried to open all the windows, but for whatever reason, they all had sticking charms. So I was caught between dusting and kicking up a cloud so dense it hurt to inhale, or trying to move things and coughing out half my internal organs anyway. But it looked better. And that’s what mattered. If Shacklebolt was going to imprison me here, even if it was halfway for my own good, I wouldn’t give him or any other self-righteous asshat who knew well enough to oppose the Dark Lord back when it was still dangerous the satisfaction of seeing me wither in muck. I would clean this, magic or not, and it would look fantastic if it killed me. Which it might’ve.

That, and the fact that having everything dirty and out of order seriously stressed me out. I clean things when I’m anxious. I was very, very anxious, not that I let Harry see any of it.

Having someone nearly murder you will make a person anxious. Being ostracized from the society you grew up in and having them hate you as a collective whole will make a person anxious. Being aggressively reminded that you are an outcast will make a person anxious. Being forced to live in the same squallid house as your former rival and current crush will make a person anxious. Having to act polite and considerate and like you don’t mind that your life has been overturned and you don’t mind that you haven’t seen your parents or your best friends or even your fucking pet cat will make a person anxious. Feeling pressured, isolated, and afraid will make a person anxious. But then, I’ve always had to act under pressure, even if I don’t necessarily act _well_.

What I was doing wasn’t really rational without magic, but it helped me. It made me feel productive. Never mind that I was sweaty and grimy and covered in dust.

I had cleaned myself off and changed clothes when Harry returned. “Draco?” he called.

“Yes?”

“Did you clean the front room?”

I walked down the stairs, peering at the room again. “Well, not really. I tried. The windows stick.”

“I’m surprised you weren’t screamed at.”

“Wallaburga and I have an arrangement.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“I’m a Black and I live here for now. That makes her happy enough to shut up.”

“Ah.” He nodded, looking pensive. “So, speaking of staying here, are we off to get the rest of your things?”

“Yes. And, Potter—I’d like my cat back.”

He smiled. “I think Luna has gotten attached, but we should be able to come to an arrangement.”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing Luna, either.”

He nodded. “We’ll go after.”

“Thanks.” I winced. I needed to stop saying thank you. I sounded just like everyone else around Harry. Since when had I gotten so spineless? I was under house arrest. Even if it was supposedly for my own good. I was being forced to stay here, with Harry, who was being much kinder than I deserved, who healed my concussion and cooked me breakfast and brought me takeout and—

“Would you like to get lunch first? My treat.”

And bought me lunch. Stupid Saint Potter.

“If you insist,” I said, acting overdramatically put-upon.

“I know a good place in Muggle London,” he suggested.

I gestured to the door. “Lead the way then, Chosen One.”

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Harry hadn’t found anything useful at the crime scene. It was in near perfect condition. Because of the Dark Mark, everyone avoided it. Old habits die hard. They didn’t even find footprints, besides my own.

“But most often cases are pretty complex,” he assured me. “Especially if it was predetermined. We’ll figure this one out.”

 

I packed my things as quickly as I could. Grimmauld Place was lonely and dirty and had a sort of weighing sadness in its walls I only truly noticed once I’d escaped it, but at least it was spacious. In comparison, my tiny apartment looked even more miniscule. Two people felt like a crowd inside it.

When I’d come here, I’d brought very little. What was truly of value I’d left to my mother, who clung to our old life much harder than I did. I packed only what felt like a loss when it was not with me.

I packed an old children’s series of books I read when I was very young, one where the hero is a boy who is cursed by fate to fight in a war that was not meant for him in order to protect his family. He makes difficult moral choices, but in the end, they’re the only ones he could have made. In the end, everyone agrees he is a good person. Everyone agrees he did what was necessary. Everyone agrees to vilify the situation, not the people caught in it.

How fantastical fiction is.

I pack other books, as well—another book I read when I was very young, about a magical wardrobe and seeing trees and talking animals in a place cursed to eternal winter. I found this book in Muggle libraries, as well. My aunt Andromeda gave it to me when I was small, back when my mother nursed her small rebellious streak enough to see her every once in a great while. I did not think my parents understood the story was Muggle. I hadn’t realized it, and when I saw the book sitting there on the shelves, I experienced a very surreal moment of comprehension. Had they understood that the lovely and terrible winter world I immersed myself in for hours at a time was a creation of anyone other than a wizard, no doubt they would have confiscated it. Maybe burned it. But the thing about books is even if the paper is gone, the story stays with you. It is a comfort, though, to have the copy with me.

 I took with me my large throw blanket, the first thing I bought with the money I earned from the restaurant. I was proud of it, even if it was inconsequential in the long run. And I rummaged around and found the pair of glasses that always ended up dropped underneath my bed when I fell asleep reading and packed them as well.

“I didn’t know you needed glasses,” Harry said.

I smiled faintly. “I tried not to let it show in school. My parents mostly bought me special charms so I didn’t have to wear them.”

“Why is that?”  
“Only gits wear glasses,” I said, tapping the side of his as I walked towards my bathroom.

“Do you really need all of that?” he asked in astonishment, looking at the dozens of small bottles I had lined up.

“Of course,” I said. “It’s not all the same thing. We can’t all walk around with bedhead and look phenomenal.”

“You think I look phenomenal?”

“I think _I_ look phenomenal,” I said. It wasn’t a lie, just an evasion.

“Oh. Is it all hair stuff?”

“No,” I laughed. “Most of it is sunscreen.”

“You’re kidding!” he exclaimed, reaching over to look at the labels.

“That one’s for your face. I have others for body. And then I have moisturizers with sunscreen in them, and BB cream with it too.”

“What’s BB cream?”

“A type of makeup Muggles use for their skin.”

“You wear makeup?” he asked. “Muggle makeup?”

“My first few months living here were stressful,” I said defensively. “I broke out a lot and had bags under my eyes. I figured I’d do something about it.”

“There must be a potion for that.”

“There is. But it requires a small amount of Erumpet Horn, which is a regulated substance most often used in restricted potions, and very expensive, at that. I didn’t want any heads to be turned right after the war—to be let off without prison time and then seen skulking around Knockturn Alley and all that, it wouldn’t look well. It was just more convenient to use the cream. My friend Sophie showed me how.”

“Oh.”

“More men should wear makeup, it’s completely acceptable,” I said airily, tossing an armful of shampoo and conditioner into my bag.

“I never said it wasn’t.”

“Well, you seemed like you were judging something,” I said, because he had been.

“I just…I didn’t realize how much, you’d…” he drifted off, at a loss.

“You expected me to continue being a prejudiced prick?” I asked him. “Living in Muggle London?”

“Well, sort of.”

I sighed. “I suppose I sort of expected it myself. But after a while I figured why bother making my life so extraordinarily difficult? Magic folk hate me. I might as well not live my life entirely lonely.”

“They don’t hate you.”

I snorted. “Tell that to the back of my head.”

“Well, not all of them. I don’t.”

“I should hope not,” I muttered. “You’re my guard.  ‘Don’t hate me’. Quite the complement. I’m so flattered.”

He ran a hand through his hair and adjusted his glasses. “Hey, I didn’t mean…”  
“I know you didn’t. I’d like to drop this off and get my cat, now.”

“Alright.” He paused. “But, you know, I—”

“I know, Potter. You’re wonderful and have never hated a single person in the world, because you’re Saint Potter and you’re perfect. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

He was shaking his head. “No, no that’s not—I’m not—”

“Just drop it,” I spat.

To the floor, he said quietly, “I’m not perfect.”

Whatever was the heavy, sad thing that resided in his voice made me tired. “I just want to go home,” I sighed with resignation. “Let’s just drop this shit off, and then I can get my cat, and then we can shut ourselves away in our respective rooms and not have to talk to each other.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“Right now, it is.” I let out a breath. “I’ll apologize for it later, though, when I feel like a piece of shit.”

That coaxed a laugh out of him.

“Oh, wait,” I said, just as we were about to leave. Something important had caught my eye that I almost forgot.

Slinging my bag on one shoulder, I picked up my Jasmine plant—which well and truly looked malnourished after so many days without water—and tucked it securely under my arm.

"We can go now.”

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“I know you’ve talked to Luna,” I said to Harry, leaving my room for the first time in hours. I’d been trying to tidy it up, but nothing could remove the gloom of it. Harry was attempting to continue what I’d started in the front room, to little avail. “But have you talked to Pansy? I wanted to firecall her, but I can’t find any floo powder anywhere.”

“Ah.” He paused what he was doing, an armchair levitated in midair. “Well, you wouldn’t.”

“Because even though you make a show about this being for my protection, I’m still under house arrest, hm? Wouldn’t want the scary Malfoy out and about without supervision.”

He tugged at his hair and lowered the armchair. “Look, it wasn’t my idea.”

“I don’t care whose idea it was,” I lied. “I’d just like to know if anyone has contacted her yet.”

“Well, _I_ didn’t, but she knows what’s going on by now. Ron went to talk to her.”

“Weasley went to talk to her?”

“Yes.”

“To tell her what’s going on? Or to interrogate her?”

“I mean…both, maybe?”

“You can’t interrogate her,” I said, scandalized.

“ _I_ won’t be.”

“Nobody can—she didn’t do this.”

“We have to look at all the possibilities. Even if she didn’t do anything, she might know something. We’re taking shots in the dark.”

“She wouldn’t do anything,” I protested. “But even if she did, she won’t take him seriously. You know she won’t.”

“When he’s finished tonight I’ll have him talk it through with me, and if he needs to I can follow-up—”

“She won’t take you seriously either.”

He set down the armchair and turned to face me. “What do you suggest, Draco?”

“Let me talk to her.”

“She might have tried to kill you. That’s too much of a—”

“She didn’t. I _know_ her, Potter, she didn’t. And I can tell when she tries to hide things from me—if you just let me talk to her, I could help.”

“I can’t let you go anywhere alone.” He rubbed the hem of his shirt over his glasses, which only served to make them dirtier. He shoved them back onto his nose, his brows furrowed.

“I’m not asking to go alone,” I explained. “You can come with me, if you feel honor-bound. I’m sure Shacklebolt would admire your dedication to the safety of the wizarding world, keeping the Death Eater in check.”

“That’s what you used to be,” he protested. “You just did what you had to do. You’re not one anymore.”

“Thanks for clarifying,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. If I stayed pissed off it was easier to ignore the part of me that wanted so much for him to keep talking like that. “I’d still like to talk to her.”

“I’ll talk to Ron tonight and see what he suggests.” Harry saw me open my mouth to protest. “He’s the Auror! He’s the one leading the investigation,” he explained hurriedly. “I can’t really do anything without his forward approval. It’s his case.”

I shrugged. “Yes you could. You’re Harry Potter.”

“I trust my best friend’s judgment,” he said, with a note of stubborn finality.

“As do I,” I rebutted. “Which is why I need to talk to her.”

“And you will, I promise. I just…can’t promise immediately. I’m sorry.”

I sighed, the fight leaving me. He just acted so damn _earnest._ I fucking hated it. “Whatever.” I turned to go back up the stairs, reaching for the banister.

“Look, Draco—I’m not, this isn’t…I’m not trying to—”

I raised an eyebrow. “Please say what you need to so I can go back to solitary confinement.”

“I’m not trying to torture you!” he blurted. “I’m not trying to make this worse! Trust ne, Draco, I know what it’s like being shut away and left in the dark. I know this feels horrendous, and I know you feel alone, and I’m so sorry you’re going through this and I wish there was a different way to do this. But, this is what we have to work with.” He bit his lip and tugged his hair again. “I just, I don’t know how else to protect you. And I know how shitty an excuse that is, trust me. But I don’t want you to get hurt again. Not because Shacklebolt ordered me to.”

I shook my head incredulously. “Stop apologizing, Potter.”

“Sor—”

“There it is!” I exclaimed. “You’re making me feel like a terrible person.”

He made a sort of helpless noise in between a sigh and a chuckle. It made my stomach hurt. I was trying not to think about his words and the warm glow they left in my chest.

“Harry,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you.” I left it there for a beat before turning to leave.

“Wait." He held me fast, fingers curling around my palm. “Would you…like some tea?”

"Oh." I laughed, not unkindly. I could tell by the expression on his face that he had changed what he meant to say the moment before he said it--and instead decided to offer me tea. And I hoped I was guessing correctly about what it had been before. If his hand on mine was anything to go by, I thought I was right.

“…Sure,” I said.  “If you promse not to argue anymore.”

“I’m not the one who always starts the argument.”

I _tsked_. “There you go, starting shit again! It’s no small wonder someone hasn’t already killed you.”

“You’d be surprised,” he said cryptically, before leading me into the kitchen. Opting not to sit at the table, I settled myself onto the counter and watched. I pressed my hands together as if to hold the sensation of his fingers a little longer. If I tried really hard, I could imagine we were sharing a kitchen under different circumstances, that whatever we had hadn’t been interrupted and it wasn’t awkward and too much and too little at once. I could almost convince myself that we were both here by choice instead of necessity.

He made my tea the way I like it, milky and with a lot of sugar. I sipped it and wondered if any of the things I wanted would be possible. I wondered if he wanted the same.

I wanted to hope so, but hope was a dangerous thing, one that I’d learned to be afraid of. It lets you down so often and I didn’t want to be hurt again. So while I sat I decided I would wait. I would wait, and I would observe, and I would find out for myself what exactly Harry wanted.

 


	10. Cigarettes

 

We went to see Luna and get Etty shortly after I’d finished with my wholly justified bout of whining and had been placated by tea.

I’d never been to her place before. This girl, she’s so strange, and I love her dearly. Her home was like something out of a picture book. When we apparated there, I thought Harry had gotten lost. The only things for miles around were dense trees, cliffs and the sea. And, of course, a lighthouse, covered in crawling plants and flowers at the base from the little garden that circled it.

Of course this girl lived in a lighthouse.

She greeted me at the door with a hug and an uncharacteristically worried look in her eyes and didn’t say much, allowing Hardy and I to do most of the explaining.

It was strange seeing her and Harry together. They had an easy sense around each other. They bantered like siblings, even now, when things were a little tense.

The inside was just as whimsical as you’d think.

I’m not sure if there were as many windows when Luna first moved in, but the entire floor was awash by natural sunlight, the color now a syrupy orange-yellow in the fading light. Plants sprawled everywhere, and little string lights were put up all around. Gigantic maps depicting every continent on the planet—and some other continents that probably weren’t on Earth—were riddled with pins and pockmarked with holes where they’d been stuck before, plastered on almost every wall. She had little things like ticket stubs and quotes stuck to the walls. She’d enchanted her ceiling to shine with whatever constellations were above us.

Her little living room was covered with overstuffed couches and chairs, pillows and blankets everywhere. None of the rugs matched, but they were all very warm, and they added something that made everything feel oddly complete.

We sat down and as I tried to talk through my version of the events, I started unconsciously picking at my cuticles. It’s a nervous habit that acts up when I’m stressed, and if I don’t stop myself, I’ll usually make myself bleed before I realize what I’m doing.

“Draco,” she said, covering my hands. “Could you French braid my hair? We haven’t done that one in a while.”

I swallowed and nodded, taking a deep breath and slowly separating her long hair into numerous different segments. Working with it calmed me down, and by doing so I was able to get through the rest of the story.

When I was done talking she stayed still so I could finish what I’d started and Harry explained the more current events.

I heard a door creak open and was very, very glad to see Etty. I hadn’t realized how much I missed her until I saw her. And the dumb little fleabag probably didn’t even care, sauntering leisurely over, taking her time. She jumped onto the couch and sat next to me, and once I was finished with Luna’s hair my fingers immediately found her fur.

I zoned out for a while, just petting her.

“You’re a good girl,” I told her quietly. It’s another habit I have when I’m feeling particularly low, to seek her out and pet her and tell her what a good little cat she is. It usually calms me down, but right then it was just making me more emotional, and I could feel tears pricking at my eyes that I’d withheld for too long.  I bit my lip hard enough to leave indents and tried unsuccessfully to school my expression into something bland.

“Harry, why don’t you go outside for a few minutes,” I heard Luna say. “If you could find me some dithering mopwips, that would be wonderful. They like to hide under the tomato plants.”

I heard Harry leave and I felt Luna’s hand rubbing my shoulder shortly after.

I sat still for a few beats, as though I hadn’t felt her, with one hand still scratching gently under Etty’s ear and the other over my mouth, as though I could contain what I felt so long as I didn’t try to speak.

“Are you alright?” she asked me, and she knew I wasn’t. I turned and cried into her arms. The tears didn’t stop for a long while.

I cried because I was scared. Because someone had hurt me and I felt humiliated and vulnerable. Because I was still so afraid of that monster the Dark Lord and his symbol even though I lived with the boy who killed him. Because I couldn’t even relax in my own apartment, that I’d tried so hard to obtain, and because I had to give up—at least temporarily—all the things I’d worked hard to give myself. I cried because I had been proud of myself, and now it was all for nothing. Because I couldn’t talk to either of my parents. Because I couldn’t see one of my best friends, who was being interrogated for my assault. And I cried because my other best friend was there, and I knew she’d stay with me.

“Everything is so fucked,” I sniffled. “It’s all wrong. It was never meant to be like this.”

She nodded and smoothed out my hair. “I know.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice watery, trying to wipe the tears off my face.

“Don’t apologize,” she said, and there was firmness in her voice that made a stark contrast to its usual airy tone. “Never apologize for how you feel.”

“Alright,” I said, though more quietly I repeated, “Sorry.”

She sighed and gently held my face away from her, using the pads of her fingers to brush my hair out of my eyes and wipe away stray moisture from my cheeks. “Do you feel better now?”

“A bit,” I replied. “Thank you.”

She laughed a little.

“What?” I asked.

“Your defense mechanism,” she observed, “is to be exceedingly polite. You don’t need to do that.”

I pursed my lips and shrugged. “I know I don’t need to, Loony,” I grumbled, and she laughed some more.

“There you go,” she smiled. “Shall I go fetch Harry back?”

“Sure,” I said.

She got up, but before she left through the door, she turned back to me. “You know,” she said with a conspiratorial wink, “there are no dithering mopwips in the garden.”

She does know how to make me laugh, that one.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

For the rest of the evening Harry treated me very cautiously.

We ate at Luna’s. I insisted on helping her cook; I didn’t want to feel like a burden, especially after crying all over her. She made Harry sit at the table while we were making dinner, because the kitchen was much too small for three people, and he would occasionally throw in a comment every now and then.

When we left she hugged both of us again, though mine was a little longer for reassurance. As we stepped out of the doorway Harry gently put his hand on my arm, both of which were occupied by carrying a squirming Etty. “To Grimmauld Place?” he asked. I nodded—as if I had a choice.

I was exhausted and wanted to be alone, so when he unlocked the door I immediately said goodnight and walked up the stairs to my room. I paused at the top of the stairs.

“Harry?” I called hesitantly.

“Yes?” he asked, popping his head into the stairwell.

“Could we please do something about the house elves?” I asked, motioning to the heads. “They’re really rather gruesome.”

He nodded, his mouth screwed up in a tight smile. “I’ll see what Kreacher would like us to do,” he said. “They’re his ancestors. I don’t want to disrespect him.”

“Right,” I nodded absently, thinking it was disrespectful to behead and mount the heads of someone’s dead ancestors in the first place. I walked into my room, letting Etty go free, and got ready for bed. I decided that, temporarily at least, I was going to try to keep her in here. I still wasn’t sure about this house or what magical vermin lived in it, so I set up her food on the windowsill where I thought she’d like to sit and put her litter box in the corner.

I wrapped myself in my biggest sweater and all the blankets on the bed to ward off the perpetual chill I felt here. I tried to force my mind to shut off and stop thinking, but my head was spinning from everything that had happened the past few days. I stared at the wall and waited. After a few hours, I finally became so tired that my exhaustion overwhelmed my mind, and I fell asleep.

My dreams were strange and muddled, full of snakes and shadows. I was running through the Manor, trying to find my parents, and when I opened the door to my room it led to the front room of Grimmauld Place, where the Dark Lord was waiting side by side with Great Aunt Wallaburga. He reached for me with his long, bony fingers, and I whirled around to run, tripping into a hallway studded with the mounted heads of my friends.

“Why did you do this?” Luna yelled at me accusingly, stuck on the wall a foot above me.

I stumbled and ran farther, through a maze of hallways, until I was out of the manor and sprinting through the woods. I tripped and landed on the ground, and when I looked up, I saw the Dark Mark floating in the sky above my old home.

I woke up to a loud noise I realized I was making.

I opened my eyes and clutched the covers around me, trying to see through the darkness of my room. I felt like I had been electrocuted and a chill settled in my bones so deep I thought I would never stop shaking.

I pushed my sweaty hair off my forehead and took a deep, shaky breath, my face held in my hands. I started at the sound of knocking at my door, my heart ready to jump out of my chest.

“Draco?” Harry asked from behind the door, only a sliver of light escaping from the hallway. “Are you alright?”

“Yes I…I’m fine,” I replied, swallowing heavily. It was still difficult to breathe normally.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Alright, well…if you need anything, just ask.”

 “Thank you, Harry,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t.

Etty glared at me from the corner of the bed for disturbing her sleep and yawned, showing small, sharp fangs. I absentmindedly ran a finger over her ears and decided I would take a shower. I was covered in sweat and too unsettled to calm down enough to go back to sleep. I checked my watch and saw that it was half past four in the morning. I sighed.

 _Some people wake up this early_ , I told myself resignedly.

I scrubbed my hair hard, as if I shampooed well enough I could wash the slowly blurring images out of my mind. Luna’s face would stay with me, though. I knew I wouldn’t forget that. She looked so furious. I’ve never seen her look like that in real life, not even when I was horrible to her in school.

By the time I was finished with my shower—which was a very, very long time—the sun was just rising. I threw on some jeans and one of my favorite sweaters and went to the window, which I’d asked Harry to un-stick earlier. Much to my gratification, it opened easily.

The room felt much bigger with the windows opened. My view wasn’t anything in particular, just the corner of the nearest building and partway down the road, but it was better than staring at heavy curtains, and the birdsong helped bring me more into reality.

Once upon a time I made myself a remedy for times like these, when everything feels like its closing in and there’s no escaping. I used it a lot in the past.

I discovered how to make it during sixth year, in potion form. But I found as I started taking it that the potion was _too_ effective at calming my anxiety—it started up too fast and too strong and completely burned away any feelings I had, good or bad. I felt obliterated, and not in a good way. Like I wasn’t even present. And then, just as suddenly, it was gone, and I felt even more anxious than before.

I experimented a bit, tweaked the formula, and realized that if I used dry substances instead of liquidized ingredients the remedy worked much better. Especially if I didn’t take all the dose in one. I could have made little pills and cut them up, but that seemed like quite a lot of work, so I just packed little single-dosage cigarettes. I smoke them slowly, so it takes a lot more time for the full dose to be in my system. I’ve found it’s a lot more effective, and it doesn’t make me as numb. Just a little lighter. And I like the smell that lingers, too. I put in a little bit of jasmine to burn, not enough to matter, but enough to be noticed.

I realized as I removed the pack from my bag that I didn’t have a light. I’d always used my wand before, so I had never thought to buy a lighter. I ran my fingers through my hair, still damp and in my face, and sighed. It was always the small things that really made being stripped of my magic sting.

 I opened my door and was about to knock on Harry’s when I heard clattering in the kitchen. I padded down the stairs and saw him at the stove, eggs in one pan and bacon in another, fruit traveling through the air and water for tea whistling in the kettle.

I knocked on the doorframe lightly. He turned, kettle in hand, and smiled at me.

“Good morning,” he said. “Breakfast?”

“Ah,” I said. “Maybe in a bit. Do you usually get up so early?”

He shrugged. “It depends on the day.”

“I hope I didn’t wake you up,” I said, knowing I had.

“It’s alright, I was already awake.”

“You were?”

“I ran out of Dreamless Sleep a bit ago,” he explained. “I still haven’t had the chance to run to the store and get it.”

“Oh.” He had nightmares too. Of course he did.

“I like cooking,” he said, as though it wasn’t a non-sequitur. “I used to do it a lot when I was little. And I like eating, so it works out well. I’ve learned how to make some pretty impressive recipes.”

I nodded.

“Would you like to sit down?”

“Alright,” I said, slowly pulling out a chair. He placed a mug of tea in front of me, along with milk and sugar.

Before he turned away to do something else, I asked, “Would you mind lighting this for me?” I held up my cigarette.

His brows furrowed. “You smoke?”

“It’s not nicotine-based,” I explained. “It’s an anti-anxiety remedy. I found dry components work better than wet ones.”

“Did you make that yourself?”

“Yeah.”

He held out his wand, which was smoldering just a bit. I lit my cigarette and took a deep drag.

“Thanks,” I said, exhaling faintly bluish smoke.

“You must actually be good at potions, then,” he said, scraping the bacon onto a plate.

“Yes, Potter,” I drawled. “I’m _actually_ good at quite a lot of things.”

He winced. “Sorry. I just always assumed you got good grades in Potions because Snape liked you.”

“Well, that didn’t hurt either.”

He barked a laugh.

“I _was_ second in our year,” I said, just in case he hadn’t understood (and also to brag, just a bit). “Right after Granger.”

He shot me a sidelong glance. “I’m sure that annoyed you to no end.”

I shrugged sheepishly. “It’s part of the reason why I was so vile to her.”

“And the other part?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Because of you.”

“Because she was friends with me?”

“Mm-hmm,” I hummed, taking another drag. I blew the smoke towards Harry, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Did you really hate me so much?” he asked, a funny expression on his face.

I laughed, which turned to coughing when a stray bit of smoke I hadn’t fully exhaled got caught in my throat. “I didn’t _hate_ you,” I croaked out. “I felt a lot of things, but hate wasn’t one of them.”

“Are you sure? Because it really felt like hate.”

“I’m a Slytherin and a Malfoy, Potter. If I really hated you do you think I would be so outward about it?”

“Ah…” Harry scratched his head. “I suppose not.”

“I would have made friends with you,” I told him. “I would have modeled myself into whatever I thought you would trust most, learn everything about you, and then ruin you.”

“That’s really not an assuring thing to say, considering you’re living in my house.”

I snorted. “I’m not living here by choice. You’re in the clear, for now, Savior.”

He scoffed. “Don’t call me that.”

“Should I call you the Chosen One?”

“Please don’t.”

“The Boy Who Lived?”

“Harry is fine. Actually, Potter is also fine. Just about anything other than that is fine.”

“I’ve heard some others too. What about Slayer of the Dark Lord? The Light Bringer?”

“Stop, Draco,” he groaned.

I grinned. “My personal favorite is Saint Potter. What a classic.”

“It’s fine when you say it. I know you mean it sarcastically.”

“Good, because I do.”

“Eat something,” he said, pushing a plate filled with bacon, toast and eggs towards me.

“Could I have some fruit?”

A bowl of it came soaring towards me with a wave of his hand.

I dropped my fork. “Have you done that before?”

“Done what?”

“Wandless magic!”

“Oh.” He stopped and looked at his hand. “In front of you? I don’t know. I don’t really keep track anymore.”

I ogled him and tried to ignore the wave of jealousy that crashed over me. He didn’t even need a wand. Even if the Ministry took his, he could still use magic. And yet here I was. Outshined again, of course when it matters. But he wasn’t Potter anymore, not really—I had only thought of him as Harry for a long while now, and that made the burn of it sting less. “Nobody is supposed to be able to do wandless magic, Potter. Not even Dumbledore could.”

He shrugged. “I dunno. It started ever since…”

I scowled. “Since when?”

He swallowed. “After the Battle.”

“Oh.” I thought of the Fiendfyre and shuddered. None of my burns left lasting scars, thankfully, but that didn’t make the experience any less traumatizing. In a different time, I might have been able to revel in Harry’s closeness, but then I’d just been consumed with terror at the idea of being consumed by the flames as completely as Vin had been.

“Eat,” he repeated, nudging the plate towards me with his spatula. “It’ll make you feel better.” He sat down across from me and started to dig in.

I slowly tore apart my toast and dragged it through the egg yolk. Watching Harry eat was a fascinating experience—he always demolished whatever was on his plate and he ate very fast, as though he was afraid someone would reach over and try to take it from him. My parents had always taught me to eat slowly out of good manners, and it was a habit that stuck with me through adolescence. 

I smiled a bit. “I’m not going to take your food away if you don’t inhale it within a certain number of seconds,” I remarked.

He shrugged, still shoveling in food. “This is how I eat,” he said, placing his hand in front of his mouth as though that made up for talking through a mouthful of food.

“You do that too much,” I said, motioning to his shoulders with the cigarette. He shrugged.

“That!”

He laughed. “It’s my preferred method of communication.”

“A shrug doesn’t communicate anything.”

“It does too.”

“All it says is ‘I don’t put enough effort into socializing’.”

“I don’t want to put any effort into socializing.”

“Who knew Saint Potter harbored such antisocial tendencies?”

“I’d much prefer a night sitting on the couch with a few friends than spending it in the company of crowds of people I’d rather not talk to.”

“Crowds of adoring fans. No!” I said, dramatically covering my face with the back of my free hand. “Don’t love me! I can’t bear to be worshipped!”

“They don’t love me,” he said a little sadly. My joking had the opposite effect than I intended, it seemed. “They don’t know me. They just know what I did.”

“I don’t know. What you did was pretty big. It landed me in prison and I was still ready to cry from happiness.”

“Well, that’s because he lived in your house. And you never wanted him there in the first place.”

I wondered how much of that I had told him—or Luna had, she must have told him about how I used to sneak her things—and how much of that was wishful thinking on his part. Not that it wasn’t true. I had hated every moment that monstrosity had shared space with me. I nodded, taking a drink of my tea.

We sat quietly for a bit, just eating. Harry’s plate was almost empty, while mine was still mostly full.

“Do you want some?” I asked him.

“Are you still hungry?”

“I am, but I can’t eat all of this, you gave me too much.”

“You’re too skinny.”

“Take the bacon, at least,” I told him.

“Are you sure? I can always make more.”

“I don’t really like it I’m probably not going to eat it anyway.”

He looked at me like I had two heads and snatched it off my plate. “Weirdo.”

I almost shrugged, but I caught myself. Harry still saw though. He smirked at me.

“I should go talk to Ron,” he said, getting up. “He should be awake. It’s his night to get Rose, so he probably hasn’t slept much anyway. I’ll talk to him about seeing Pansy,” he said, before I could ask. I nodded and turned back to my tea while he put his dishes in the sink.

I heard him pause and was about to turn back to him when I felt his fingers lightly in my hair and stiffened. “Sorry,” he said. “A lock of it was turned in the wrong direction, and it was bugging me for a while.”

 “It’s alright.” I managed to sound fairly normal.

“And, Draco?” he asked, taking a few steps away.

“Yes?” I asked, refusing to turn around because I knew my face was flushed. One of the disadvantages of being so pale is that I blush so easily, and all it does is make me more embarrassed.

“I like when you leave your hair down like that.”

“Oh.” I turned to look at him, surprised, but he was already walking out the door.

 I smiled into my mug.

He liked my hair.

Such an inconsequential thing made me feel happier than that remedy ever could have.

 


	11. The Boggart

The happiness I felt from this morning dissipated quickly and I found myself bored and alone save for the strange thumps and creaks of the house. It made me uneasy and, restless as I was, my mind was making things up. I couldn’t focus on the book I was reading, one I’d snatched from my pile of library books before we left. It was in French so it required more concentration than normal and I simply couldn’t stand it right then.

“I need to get out of this damn house,” I muttered to myself, pacing the halls. Cleaning just didn’t work for this stupid place. It didn’t matter that I’d piled up all the heavy curtains into a corner and let the sunlight in or that I dusted or that I’d had Harry transfigure the furniture. Everything still looked gloomy.

Somewhere around my third circuit around the house, I passed the room with the wardrobe right as it rattled.

I stopped in front of the doorway, staring. That certainly hadn’t been my imagination. It wasn’t just the house settling. It was definitely something alive.

I gingerly walked into the room and tested the windows. Surprisingly, these opened with a bit of a push—whoever had stuck the windows of the front room had forgotten to do this one, lucky for me. That meant it would be easier to get whatever swarming monstrosity was probably in there out of the house. It sounded like a lot of different things, so they were probably winged. Ridding the house of whatever maleficent creatures were in there would make it a bit quieter, at least.

I pushed the wardrobe over to the open windows, it rattling all the while. If I got it close enough I figured the creatures would prefer to fly out with the potential to afflict the masses rather than one solitary person. I hoped they weren’t doxies. I still remembered Lockheart’s classes with a grimace.

Taking a deep breath and steadying myself, I grasped the handle and, tense and ready to jump out of the way, flung it open.

Nothing flew out of the window. I wish it had.

Oh, I wish it’d been doxies.

It wasn’t. It really wasn’t.

It was me.

I had on a crisp suit under my robes, which were elegantly tailored. My shoes looked and sounded expensive. My wand was in my hand, my hair was slicked back, and my sneer was in full force. My eyes were as cold as ice.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, taken aback and very confused. “I, uh…”

The other me turned, and I saw Sophie peeking out from behind the door of the wardrobe. Her hair was pulled up in a ridiculous bun on the top of her head, like usual, and she had on the same bracelets that she always wore despite them being a violation of our dress code.

“What…?” I asked, at a loss. “How did you get here?”

The other me’s sneer somehow became even more pronounced. He raised his wand, looked directly at poor lost Sophie, and said—

“ _Avada Kedvara!_ ”

She died in a flash of green.

Her body thumped to the floor, her eyes wide and lifeless. In her hand she held that ticket she had waved in front of my face that day, the day before I left.

I recoiled, agape. The other me shot me a significant look.

 _This isn’t real,_ I told myself. _A nightmare. A boggart. It’s not real._

Ryan started walking out of the doorway, smiling in greeting and doing the same weird hand sign he always had, his middle and pointer finger together, separate from his pinkie and ring finger. He always thought it was funny that I didn’t know what he was referencing, so he did it all the time. I used to get irritated by it, but all I felt in that moment was sheer terror.

“Ryan—“

Without breaking eye contact, the other me raised his wand and pointed.

_It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not_

“ _No_ —”

“ _Avada Kedvara!_ ”

At first it was just people I didn’t know well. People I worked with at the restaurant, people who lived in my building. But then it was Millie. Then it was Astoria and Daphne. It didn’t matter anymore whether or not it was real. It was—it was—

“Please don’t,” I begged when I saw Luna’s long hair blow from inside the wardrobe. “Please don’t, please don’t, please—“

“Draco?” she asked, her brow furrowing in concern, looking at the other me. “What’s wrong?”

“No, no, no, no, no—”

I heard the words. I saw the flash of green light up the inside of my eyelids. Her flowing dress, moving through the air, down and down.

I howled.

I was sobbing when I saw Pansy’s perfectly manicured nails reach around the door, blurry through a haze of tears. I curled into myself, repeating a mantra I can’t remember fully through my panic. Garbled, terrified begging.

He didn’t stop.

He never stopped.

Not even when my parents walked out.

 

He never stopped.

 

I felt like I was dying, and he never stopped.

I wailed and howled and screamed to try to drown the noise out, but I always felt the way they dropped to the ground.

“Please,” I begged, devastated, on the floor covered in tears and blood from where I’d clawed my face and ears trying block out what was happening.

“Draco!” I heard a voice distantly. It didn’t register whose it was until I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder.

I jerked away and looked up, terrified I would see myself. But it was just Harry, his bottle-glass green eyes concerned behind his specs, his brows furrowed and his face close to mine. One hand stayed on my shoulder, and the other gently pulled my own hand away from my face.

“Draco,” he said, his voice saturated with compassion and worry. He brushed my hair out of my eyes and some of the tears off my cheek. “What’s wrong?”

“You have to—“ I gasped, having trouble breathing. My voice was desperate and shaky. My hands clutched at his sweater. “You have to leave—he’s going to—Harry, please, Harry—“

I looked over his shoulder and saw the other me aiming his wand.

“No,” I said tersely, positioning myself in between the two of them and walking towards the other me. “No— _no!_ ”

I heard the spell. I saw the light as it moved through me. And I heard the thud behind me.

“No,” I managed to get out, the sound strangled and choked with emotion. I couldn’t turn around.

He killed everyone.

 _I_ killed everyone.

The other me walked over to reach me, crumpled there, defeated, surrounded by the bodies of my friends and family. Alll dead, all because of me. He looked down his nose and he stared, and he stayed.

I moved to hit him but my fist went straight through him like the spell had gone through me. I fell and landed on Pansy, who felt very, very real. She was cold. A lock of her dark hair cut her face into sections. Her motionless blue eyes, usually so beautiful and full of mischievous light, stared at me dully.

“I’m so sorry,” I cried.

I cried and cried.

I was truly, completely alone. Nobody could love me. Everyone who ever had suffered.

And it was all my fault.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

_“RIDIKULUS!”_

I jerked up and looked around. My head pounded and my back screamed. Everyone around me, the bodies, the other me, were all turning to wisps of inky black smoke, spinning and spinning until they all fled to the wardrobe. The door slammed shut behind them. I heard fast and heavy footsteps approaching.

“Draco,” I heard Harry say, but his tone was different from before. It was urgent, sharp, and tinged with panic. He knelt next to me. “Draco, look at me.”

I did, my chest heaving. I couldn’t catch my breath. My eyes wouldn’t focus.

“Where—is he?” I croaked. “He—”

“He’s gone,” Harry said. “He’s gone. It’s all gone.”

I shook my head and pulled at my hair, unable to shape my thoughts into coherent words. I closed my eyes and I saw my own in the darkness, cold and baleful and full of hatred. My short nails dug into my scalp and I still couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe.

“Hey, look at me,” he repeated, tugging at my wrists to stop me from hurting myself. I shook my head violently. Gingerly he reached out and held my face in his hands, forcing me to look up.

“I want you to breathe in deeply, alright? Just like me. Just look at what I’m doing.” He inhaled, his chest rising slowly. I tried to do the same thing, fighting against the urge to gasp. My head was spinning. I felt nauseous. I tried and failed and Harry made me try again. And again. And again. He made me continue until I felt like I could finally breathe.

It took a long time. He rubbed my shoulders and made soft, comforting sounds all the while, little “shhh”s and “you’re okay” and “it’s alright”.

I felt like I couldn’t possibly cry anymore, but the tears were still rolling down my face quietly. I was shaken and scared and humiliated, so I pulled my face away to hide in my hands. Harry let me, but I felt a hand on my arm, and he pulled me into him. His chest was warm. With my ear pressed against it, I could hear his heartbeat, and that alone reassured me more than anything. He smelled like cinnamon and autumn leaves. I could faintly discern that electric scent the air gets right before a big thunderstorm, and wondered distantly if it had anything to do with his magic.

“You were dead,” I whispered hoarsely. It was the loudest sound I could make. “You were all dead. Everyone…”

“It’s alright,” he said, carding through my hair and rubbing my back. “Everyone’s fine. Everything is fine, Draco. It was just a boggart.”

Just a boggart. Defeated like a third year. And I couldn’t even fight it. “I want my fucking wand back,” I spat bitterly, voice cracking with emotion, my jaw clenched and my hands curled into fists. I hated how vulnerable I was.

“I know,” he said. His fingers were still in my hair. His cheek was on the top of my head, and he pressed me closer to him. “I know, Draco, I’m sorry.”

I wanted to say something angry. Something cutting. Something sharp and malicious to make him feel how I felt. But I knew that would only make me feel worse, and I knew he was trying his hardest with the situation. I knew it wasn’t his fault, not really. And I was so exhausted, and it felt so good to just be held.

We stayed like that for a very long time, sitting on the floor, until my legs were numb and I could finally get my fingers to uncurl from Harry’s sweater. I pulled away and he let me go reluctantly.

“Are you okay?” he asked me, still rubbing my back.

I snorted, finding only so much self-deprecating humor in the situation. I felt so pathetic. “Thanks to you, Savior.” The words came out sounding flatter and more tired than I meant. “I’m not usually this emotional, I swear.” I sniffed, trying to regain some of my pride. My throat was still sore and scratchy. I rubbed my swollen eyes and took a deep, steadying breath.

“I need a bath,” I sighed, standing up. Harry stood with me and hovered next to me while I walked up the stairs and down the hall to the bathroom.

I stopped in the doorway and raised an eyebrow. “You don’t need to come in with me.”

“I—I know,” he said, swallowing. “It’s just…Do you need anything? Is there anything else I can do?” His eyes swept over me worriedly, lingering on the scratches on my face. “Do you want me to—”

“After,” I said. I didn’t think I could handle feeling his magic over me right now, or I would do something truly stupid. “I’d just like to feel clean again.” I paused. “Thank you, Harry,” I said earnestly. “You’ve done more than enough. Really, I’m fine.”

He bit his lip. “Alright,” he said reluctantly. “If you need anything, anything at all, I’ll be here. Okay?”

I nodded. He nodded back and turned hesitantly to go back down the stairs. I shut the door and sighed, dropping onto the side of the bath with my head in my hands.

I was such a mess.

I took the longest bath of my life, covered in bubbles and glitter and the scent of vanilla. It reminded me of Mother’s perfume and helped calm me down.  I wanted to light some of the smelly candles I brought back, too, but much like this morning I had nothing to light them with, so I decided not to bother. This was good enough.

When I got in the water was nearly scalding. I stayed until the water was only lukewarm and my fingers were wrinkled. I toweled off and changed into my favorite sweater and jeans and decided to wear that ridiculous pair of fuzzy socks Luna had gotten me for my birthday, because they really were very warm and they reminded me she was alright.

I sat quietly for a while, petting Etty, who was napping on the end of my bed. She purred and nudged my hand. I smiled and resisted the urge to cuddle her, knowing that I’d probably get a claw to the face for my efforts. I double checked her litter and her food and I watched the clouds collect outside my window—although it wasn’t late, it was very dark outside, shadows amassing for an upcoming storm. I welcomed it, so long as it didn’t make the house any draftier. The sounds of rain and thunder always relaxed me.

Petting Etty reminded me of the scrapes I still had. I grabbed my pack of cigarettes—I knew I’d be asking Harry for another light very soon—and padded downstairs. He was sitting in the living room on the couch in front of the fireplace, which was ablaze. With all the portraits covered and the fire lit, and all of the couches transfigured to be worn and overstuffed rather than elegant and rigid, the space seemed miraculously inviting.

“I made you some tea,” he said.

“Thank you,” I replied, curling up on the couch next to him. Both our mugs were on the little coffee table, side by side. His had a little snitch on it. It said, “You’re a catch!” written in gold font.

“Who got you that?” I asked, motioning to it.

“Oh.” He looked at it as if noticing it for the first time. “Ginny, back when we were still dating.”

“It’s cute.”

“I know,” he replied distractedly, still searching my face. “Do those hurt at all?”

“They twinge a bit. Could you…?”

“Of course.”

He shifted over across the couch, and paused. “I forgot to say, last time, that I’m not good enough at this yet to work without touching the affected area. Is that…?”

“Alright? Yeah, that’s fine. It was fine last time too.” I cocked my head. “ ‘Yet?’ Are you planning on becoming more advanced? Only Mediwizards can heal without contact, or so I thought, and you’re already better than most because you don’t use your wand.”

“Well…” he said, drifting off. “I’d given it some thought. Senior Aurors usually stop at the same level I’m at right now, but I considered continuing in medicine. I don’t think I will, though.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “I’ve already seen enough to last me a while, I think.”

I nodded.

He reached out to me and I closed my eyes. I felt the pads of his fingers gently trace the scratches I’d left. I smelled, again, that cinnamon and autumn scent, that electricity, and felt the soft wave of his magic wash over me. I felt the skin knit back together. I shivered because of it, because of his magic, because of our closeness.

He finished all too soon, carefully looking from side to side to make sure he’d healed each one. I opened my eyes to immediately find his, dark and unreadable.

“Here,” he said, tugging a heavy blanket thrown over the back of the couch around my shoulders. “I know it’s drafty in here. I had Kreacher clean out the fireplace because of it. A hot drink helps, too.” He nudged the mug at me.

I was glad that he seemed as reluctant as I was to talk about what had happened earlier. I pulled the blanket around me—taking care to subtly cover my crotch, which unfortunately had ideas of its own—and thanked Merlin he just thought I was cold. “I would think you’re trying to make me fat, the way you keep pushing food on me,” I said, but reached out and accepted the mug.

“I just don’t want you to be hungry,” he said, scratching his head. I was starting to think it was a nervous tick, and all it did was make his ridiculous hair stick up in even more places. “Everything feels better when you’re full.”

I scrutinized him for a beat, puzzled. Surely he was never wanting for food? He was the golden boy of the wizarding world. Who in their right minds wouldn’t give him everything he wanted, besides, well, a Death Eater?

“Thank you,” I said eventually. “But don’t feel obligated to feed me. I _can_ , in fact, cook for myself. No house elves in Muggle London.” The tea was actually making me feel better. It was making me very tired, though, too.

 “I know,” he said quickly. “I didn’t think you couldn’t. It’s just, nice. To have someone to cook for. And whenever Molly cooked for us, it always made me feel welcome, so…”

“Molly?”

“Molly Weasley.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding. Of course. Harry was practically a Weasley himself, even if he wasn’t dating Ginny anymore. “Why did you stop dating her? Ginny, I mean.”

He shrugged. “It just wasn’t the right time. She had just gotten a position as a second-string chaser on the Holyhead Harpies, so she was traveling a lot. I was still figuring out Auror training. We never got to see each other except for the holidays, and even then it always felt a bit too, well, a bit too much like I was dating my sister. She’s still one of my best mates, though. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s such an amazing person.”

“Mm.” I didn’t know her well enough to feel able to say much more than that.

I mischievous smile tugged at his lips. “Do you want to know a secret?”

I side-eyed him. “That depends on the secret.”

“Well, can you keep one?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Can _I_ keep a secret? Think about your audience for a moment, Harry.”

He bit his lip. “You have to promise not to tell anyone. Especially not Luna.”

“Well, I can’t promise anything until I know what it is I’m making the promise about.”

“Come on, Draco, it’s not going to hurt anyone. She just can’t know. Please?” He looked at me imploringly, and any fight I had left in me fled instantly.

“Alright, Potter,” I said, waving a hand and taking a sip of tea. “You’ve convinced me. I promise. So what is this secret?”

“I think Ginny is going to ask Luna out.”

I nearly spat my tea all over the blanket. Harry was laughing.

“What?” I asked.

“I said, Ginny is—”

“Yes, yes I got that part. So Ginny is, is she bi?”

“She’s not sure. She said it sort of comes and goes, depending on the day, what she thinks. But she’d like to try dating Luna.”

“Hmm.” I held my mug to my mouth, thinking. I didn’t know much about Ginny. I knew that Luna didn’t really date, though. And I was wondering how that dynamic would work with their jobs. Ginny was presumably still with the Holyhead Harpies, which meant she’d be traveling around. That might actually work well with Luna, I mused, because she wanted to travel everywhere and anywhere, and as the head editor and journalist for the Quibbler—she was pretty much the only person behind it, if not for the occasional journalists she invited for guest articles even stranger than hers—she could write about anything she wanted. If she actually wanted to date her. I wasn’t sure she would. She’s never mentioned dating or being with anyone in the past, and she’d never really expressed desire to, at least not to me.

I also didn’t know how I felt about Ginny. The main thing I remembered about her was her skill with Bat-Boogey Hexes. But then, I had deserved it.

“I don’t know when she’ll ask her. It might not be soon. But she mentioned it to me.”

I nodded.

“What do you think?”

I told him my thoughts. He laughed when I mentioned the Hex.

“I’m glad I was never on the wrong end of one of those,” he said. “It looks brutal.”

“It is.”

He grinned at me, taking a sip of his own tea. I rested my cheek on my knee and looked into the flames. They were mesmerizing, but watching them made my eyes hurt, and little after-bursts littered the inside of my eyelids.

I was feeling pleasantly warm and found it very difficult to keep my eyes open. I looked over to Harry and threw some of the blanket towards him. He turned to me, setting his tea on the coffee table.

“Have some blanket,” I said. “It’s big enough for both of us.”

He took it and pulled it over himself, shifting over. His thigh pressed against my calves and he leaned back against the couch cushions.

It wasn’t late, but I was exhausted, my synapses frayed from what had happened. And Harry was so warm, and had been so kind, and I wanted so much that I was sick of being unsure about. So I moved around until I was leaning against him, hoping he wouldn’t move away. He was still for a moment, and then wrapped his arm around me, just like he had that day after we flew together, which seemed so far away. It frustrated me that I still felt so unsure around him, most of which I blamed on the situation. But I chose to ignore my frustration right then and revel in his closeness instead. His fingers ran up and down my arm, the fire crackled in the fireplace, the rain pattered on the windows, and I was finally calm.

“Draco…”

“Mm?”

“I’m sorry. About today. I should have made sure it was gone before you came here.”

“You’re not the one who opened the wardrobe, Harry. It wasn’t Narnia, but I should have expected something like a boggart from the sounds it was making. I thought it was doxies.”

“You’ve read The Chronicles of Narnia?”

“Only The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It was one of my favorite books when I was little. Aunt Andromeda gave it to me.”

“Oh.” He paused for a moment, his hand still rubbing my arm slowly. My head was on his shoulder, almost under his chin, and I could hear him swallow. “Well. But, anyway. I want you to know that this is a safe place, and it’ll continue to be so for you.”

“I know that, Harry. I’ll just avoid that one wing of the house for the rest of my life.”

“I’ll get rid of it,” he reassured me firmly. “I just want you to know that no matter what, you can stay here and I’ll do what I can to make it comfortable. Even if, well, if you…”

“If I what?” Brow furrowed in confusion, I turned to look at him, holding the back of the couch for balance. He looked nervous. His hand moved lightly from my shoulder to my hair, barely touching, paused in midair. We were close enough that even with my bad vision I could see the little spots of dark green in his irises and the scratches on his glasses.

“If you don’t want to kiss me back,” he said in a breath, biting his lip.

Eyes wide, I lost my breath and stiffened. He immediately took my reaction for rejection. His hand disappeared from my hair and he was in the process of moving away and apologizing when I grabbed his arm.

 

“Wait.”

 

He stopped, and he was there, and I was there, and suddenly, beautifully, we were kissing.

His lips on mine sent a jolt down my spine that took my breath away. I gasped and he deepened the kiss. I felt the soft curl of his tongue against mine. I felt his fingers comb through my hair. I felt the soft fabric of his sweater under my palm, the wispy hairs on the nape of his neck under my fingers. I heard his breathing in my ears. I smelled that lovely scent of cinnamon again, faint before, everywhere now.

We parted too soon for my liking. Harry leaned slightly away, our foreheads still touching, his lips swollen.

"Is this alright?” he asked me.

It took a moment for his question to register. My mind was dulled and my thoughts were hazy and the only thing I could think of was the sensation of his lips on mine.

“Er. It…uh. Yeah,” I replied, breathless and eloquent.

He grinned and bit his lip, his eyes crinkling at the corners. And he kissed me. And kissed me. And kissed me again.

All my frustration and pain and fear and humiliation was seared from my mind by the heat of his mouth and the softness of his lips. I knew the respite was only temporary, but I wanted him to never stop. His arms were solid around me, his hands holding me gently. Despite everything, stupidly maybe, I felt protected.

He never tried to do anything further, for which I was immensely grateful. Too much had happened that day—I wasn’t in a good state of mind to do anything further and I still felt too shaken to comfortably have any sort of confrontation without bursting into tears. He just kissed me, and when we were done he held me against his chest, curled on the couch lengthwise in between his legs. I listened to his breathing, to his heartbeat. I ran my fingers across the fabric of his sweater and smiled, pressing closer to him.

When I fell asleep there, for the first time in a long time, I had absolutely no nightmares.

  
 


	12. Veritaserum

I woke up the next morning feeling very, very warm. I could hear someone else’s breathing, loud and steady in my ears, and smelled the scent of cinnamon. I realized where I was before I opened my eyes, and when I did I was faced with the worn yellow H stitched into Harry’s sweater.

I wasn’t sure to move or not. I didn’t want to wake him but my neck was sore from leaning on him all night, so I shifted slightly. His arms reflexively tightened for a moment before holding me loosely. I looked up to see his eyes puffy from sleep and with faint smudges underneath them indicating a lack thereof, even more brilliant green without his glasses, looking down at me fondly.

“Good morning,” he said warmly, his voice a little rough.

I stared him for a beat, unsure of where exactly we stood, and surprised that he seemed as kind and welcoming as usual. I wasn’t sure why I expected otherwise from the Golden Boy. “Good morning,” I responded eventually, clearing my throat to dispel the sleep from it. “Did you sleep alright?”

“It was fine,” he said.

I touched the bags under his eyes lightly. “Are you sure?”

He sighed. “It’s nothing, really. I’m used to it. And you?”

“I slept well, thank you,” I replied, slipping back into formality, moving more to the side of him and pulling the sleeves of my sweater over my hands. I sucked on my bottom lip, knowing that he was lying about how bothersome sleeplessness was—I could attest to it myself—but I was unsure how to broach the subject again.

He sat up with me, swinging his legs to the floor. His breath was a bit stale from sleep but I still leaned into him when he kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll start on breakfast.”

I nodded. “I’ll help.”

We moved around the kitchen together, making an obscene amount of food, as usual for Harry. He fried eggs and made toast while I cut up some fruit for myself and made tea. “I’d like to talk to Weasley today about my wand,” I told Harry. “And I’d like to see Pansy, finally.”

He nodded and chewed the inside of his cheek. “Are you sure you want to do both today?”

“I want my wand back,” I said simply, pursing my lips.

He nodded. “Okay. We’ll go to see Ron after breakfast.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He thought for a minute. “It might be best just to talk directly to Kingsley.”

“He’s not in charge of my case, though.”

“No, he’s not.”

“So he hasn’t done any research. I think Weasley would be better to talk to, because he might be able to convince Shacklebolt that I didn’t do it and get him to give me it back.”

Harry nodded slowly. “Ron says he has a lead, but it’s tentative and he doesn’t want to tell me any more than I have to know so I’m not sure who it is. Either way, we can’t detain them yet, nor do we know if we even have the right person. I hardly know any more than you do.”

I shrugged. “My wand takes precedence. And for that, we only need to know I didn’t do it. Which should be obvious,” I muttered.

He bit his lip. “I know. We’ll talk to Ron.”

I poured us both mugs of tea and took mine, along with my breakfast, to the table.

I was ravenous. We both ate quickly. And then we left, and for the first time in what felt like a very long time I set foot outside again.

It was very cold out that day and the wind was just strong enough to bite at my cheeks. The few leaves still clinging onto the darkened withered tree branches swayed precariously, some falling around us as we walked. I shoved my hands in my pockets and dipped my chin into the collar of my coat.

“Where are we going?” I asked him.

“The alley a few blocks over,” he answered. “There are a few too many Muggles around here to comfortably apparate. It’s not far, I promise.”

By the time we arrived I was already shivering lightly. Harry lead me into the shadows with his hand warm on my upper arm and asked, “Are you ready?”

“Let’s just get this over with,” I muttered, and felt the familiar twist in my stomach that meant I was about to get side-alonged. I squeezed my eyes shut, held my breath, and then we were there.

He wrapped an arm around me briefly, noticing my wary expression. “Ron’s good people,” he assured me. “He’ll be fine.”

I hoped so.

Harry knocked on the door, which was immediately flung open by an enthusiastic and fat too tall Weasley. “Harry!” he exclaimed, thumping him on the back. “Perfect timing. Hermione’s just taken Rose out to the park.”

“Oh. I was hoping to see them,” Harry said.

“Stick around and you will. In fact, take Rose. You can keep her. I want to sleep.” He seemed to notice me for the first time. “Malfoy,” he said, and though his eyes were narrow and appraising, he gave me a slight nod.

I nodded back curtly. My arms were pressed in tight to my torso, but my shoulders were rigid. I wasn’t used to being around someone so much taller than myself anymore, considering the only people I’d interacted with for days were Luna and Harry. “Weasley.” I managed to only frown instead of sneer when I said his name.

He led us inside and motioned for us to sit at the table. Harry brushed his fingers lightly over mine underneath it, and when I looked over at him he gave me a small, encouraging smile.

Weasley started talking a lot of nonsense to me, exactly what Harry had told me but more long-winded. I cut him off with a raised hand and said, “I don’t care. Well, not right now. I just want my wand back.”

His lips tightened. “We can’t do that right now. We still haven’t eliminated you as a suspect.”

“I’ll do anything,” I said firmly. “Put me under Veritaserum. I don’t care. I didn’t do anything.”

He looked at me hard, but after the bright intensity of Harry’s eyes, his just looked washed-out to me. “Veritaserum has lasting effects for twenty-four hours after ingestion.”

“I don’t care.”

He appraised me, less meanly than I would have in his situation. More…pensive, really. “I’ll talk to Kingsley.”

“When will you talk to him?”

“Sometime today.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“That’s against protocol, Malfoy.”

“I don’t care, Weasel.” I wanted to say more, but I bit my tongue. No use antagonizing people I needed to help me.

“I think you should let him, Ron,” Harry said softly.

“Why?” he asked, rebounding on him. His face wasn’t as red as I’d seen it before, not by a long shot, but it was starting to clash with his hair. I still got a twinge of that old sense of pride in making him angry, even though it was unhelpful and childish.

“I’ve been living with him,” he explained. “I really don’t think he would have done it. And you don’t think so, either. I know you don’t. I mean, really, he’s _Malfoy_. Do you think he’d be brave or stupid enough to hurt himself, just to make a more convincing con?”

I pulled my sleeves over my hands, hurt and embarrassed. I knew I wasn’t brave, but I was trying to be more so. And just because I didn’t go running off in the middle of the night to risk my life for something meaningless like a chat with a few spiders or a wrestling match with a troll didn’t mean I was a coward—it just meant I was smart. I thought I’d been very brave, personally. Knowing nothing about Muggles but trying to live with them. Figuring out how to make my own life. How to live on my own. How to live with myself. I thought I’d been very brave indeed, before now.

Bravery without selectiveness was just stupidity. At least, that’s what I told myself. I schooled my expression blank and didn’t show either of them how I felt, but it took effort.

His words might have hurt, but they had the desired effect. Weasley looked like he was actually considering it.

“He’ll still be on parole,” he said.

Harry shrugged. “He lives in Grimmauld Place. He needs a wand to live there. He hasn’t even met the ghoul yet,” he told him.

“What ghoul?” I asked, my head snapping towards Harry. Weasley laughed.

“I suppose you’re right,” he sighed. I was thankful Harry had, at least, not mentioned the boggart. I had a shred of dignity intact. “You’d know best. Let’s see what we can do.”

 

I took the Veritaserum. I answered their questions. My responses rolled off my tongue before I could even think about my words. Just the thought of trying to stop them made me uncomfortable. Lying was an impossible feat to think about—I wasn’t even capable of considering it.

But I got my wand back. I almost cried when I held it in my hands again.

“Thank you,” I told them, and I was too overwhelmed to even hate myself for how weak I sounded in that moment. I think Shacklebolt nodded. I held my wand close to my chest and could feel the magic pulsing through it, just waiting to be used.

Everything became more real then. Everything that had happened to me. I had never been without magic for a long period of time before then—even when I was alone and homeless, sleeping on park benches, I had warming spells and wards and plenty of _scourgify!_ s to keep me warm, safe, and clean. Being back with it was taking a deep breath after being underwater too long. It made my head spin, my stomach clench, my heart pound. But I had to keep it together.

 _I’m not usually this emotional, I swear,_ I told myself, remembering what I’d said to Harry yesterday. And I wouldn’t fall apart, not again. I’d spent too long crying. Now I was desperate, now I was angry. But for what and at whom were still mysteries.

When they found who started all of this, I hoped they kept them locked up. Because if they wouldn’t, they’d have to lock me away before I broke parole in a most spectacular way.

“Would you like to go home?” Harry asked, and the “No” was falling out of my mouth before he finished his question.

“I want to walk around,” I told him. “I’ve been inside too long. Let’s go into Muggle London. Let’s get something to eat.” I really wanted to be able to say, “I want to go to Diagon Alley,” but I wasn’t ready for that yet. Both because of the unpleasant memories and how I knew people would treat me in a crowd.

“Alrght,” he said. He talked for a while more with Shacklebolt and Weasley, but none of them addressed me directly, and so I didn’t pay attention. I felt like a small child again, dragged by the hand around the marketplace from one of my mother’s friends to another, having to wait impatiently while she made endless small talk with people I didn’t care to talk to.

Once we got out of the Ministry I relaxed considerably. Harry may have had friends there, but for me, nothing resided there but fear and uncertainty.

“Where would you like to eat?” he asked.

“L’as du Falafel on Rue de Rosiers,” I responded immediately. “But we can go to a Chipotle or something, it’s fine,” I muttered afterwards quickly, embarrassed.

He gave me a look and burst out laughing. “I guess the serum hasn’t worn off yet,” he said, trying to withhold a smile. “Sorry, I’ll try not to ask you any direct questions.”

“It’s alright,” I muttered, shrugging. For all the annoyance, it got me my wand back.

“Is the falafel place in France, though?”

 “Yes.”

“Alright. That might be a bit much for today, but we can make time to go to it another day.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything, because I didn’t have to.

While we ate our meal I thought about what I should do next. I didn’t want to see Pansy with the truth serum still in my system—I couldn’t imagine what she’d make me say—but I did really want to talk to her. I decided to wait it out a few more hours and see how I felt later.

“What would you like to—” Harry started, then stopped, thinking. “I’m not sure what we should do now.”

I smiled, thankful he was being considerate. “I want to see Pansy, but I should wait until the potion wears off. I’d like to walk around and explore the city some, though, if you’d like to stay with me. Maybe we could walk around a bit. I like going to Covent Garden.”

“Okay, sure thing.”

We walked around London for a few hours that day. I even managed to impress Harry by navigating the Underground.

“Where are you going?” he asked. We were walking around the Parliament buildings, across the Thames from the London Eye, but I wanted to get away from the tourists. There were too many Muggles to apparate without being seen, so I was making a beeline for the station.

“The U.” I reached behind me for him. “Haven’t you traveled on it?”

“Not…not really,” he said, looking at me in puzzlement. “You have? _You_?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I used to go out for drinks with my coworkers sometimes after closing the restaurant. It really wouldn’t have been safe for me to try to apparate after drinking, and Ryan lives a few stops father than me on the Victoria Line, so we’d always ride together.” I pulled an Oyster card out of my wallet. “Do you know how to get one of these?”

“Uh…”

I showed Harry how to work the machines with more than a little pride. I lead him through the turnstiles, and when we walked through the tunnels I caught him looking at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. I had a warm glow in my chest that persisted until the end of the day.

We went and got ice cream at the same place we visited before all of this, though the weather was now much too cold. We wandered around and whenever we were met with an abundance of tourists, I judged and made jokes about them while Harry laughed and told me halfheartedly to stop.

The shadows were getting long and the sky was becoming dark.

“Has the Veritaserum worn off enough that you feel comfortable seeing Pansy?”

“No.” I sighed. “But I do want to see her.”

"We could wait another day, if you want.”

I bit my lip. “I’d rather not.”

“I’m sure you don’t have that much to lie about to her then.”

"Well, what if she wears that really terrible lipstick again, I’ll have quite a lot to hide.”

He laughed. “If you do, I won’t be able to protect you.”

“Nobody can protect anyone against Pansy’s wrath,” I said. “We might as well get going.” I held out my arm to him. “Oh, she lives on Diagon Alley, by the way. Alone she’s granted me access inside Florean’s anti-apparition wards, because she lives on top of it, but because she doesn’t know you we’ll have to apparate on the street.”

He stiffened immediately. “Ah.”

“Is that an issue?”

“No,” he said, his voice higher pitched than usual.

I looked at him hard and felt a dropping sensation in my stomach. “If…if you’re afraid of being seen with me, we can apparate there separately. She’s right near the ice cream parlor—you could apparate over near Madam Malkin’s, or near Gringotts, and then meet up with me after I’ve gone up the stairs to her building.”

“No!” he said forcefully. “No, it’s not you. I promise it’s not. I, just, well, I live in a Muggle area for a reason, you know?”

“The reason being you can’t possibly stand potentially encountering an adoring fan?”

He winced. “If there was just one of them, it’d be fine.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So you’re afraid there’s going to be a horde of people ready to kiss your feet when we get there?”

“I mean, not in those words…”

“And that frightens you?”

“It’s mostly the media,” he tried to explain. “All the reporters and things—they keep trying to ask me questions, and they don’t respect my personal space, and I really don’t like it when lots of people try to grab me—it’s overwhelming and—I just—” He took a long, deep breath. “I’m sorry. I can deal with it. It’s not a problem.”

I continued staring. “Are you sure? Because it kind of sounds like a problem.”

He nodded determinedly. “Positive.”

“Alright…”

We twisted on the spot and landed in front of Florean’s.

“Harry Potter!”

I’m not sure who said it first, but immediately, reporters appeared. They reached towards him but recoiled once they saw me, only to fight to get even closer to us. The din they were making was already overwhelming me. I don’t know where they were or how they found us so quickly, but Harry immediately had me by the wrist and was running towards the door of the stairway to the apartments above the ice cream place. I stumbled after him, immensely surprised about the intensity of their reaction.

We got in the door and he slammed it shut after me, gasping for air. His eyes were wild, his glasses askew, and his scarf was nearly falling off his neck. He pulled it off of him and held it tightly in his hands, trying to calm down.

I wasn’t sure what to do, but I didn’t think he wanted anyone else in his space, so I stayed a respectful distance away and put a hand on one of his own. I rubbed his knuckles with my thumb and locked eyes with him.

“Alright?” I asked.

He sighed, shaking his head. “I fucking hate crowds,” he said, laughing a bit hysterically. “I hate that they keep tugging at me.”

I peered out the window on the door. The group had mostly dispersed, deterred by the threat of potentially trespassing, but a few lingered around the doorway. “I didn’t realize they were actually that bad.”

He snorted.

“I mean, I guess it could be considered complementary.”

“It’s fucking annoying is what it is.”

"Well, that too.” He barked a laugh and cracked a smile, which I gave back to him.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said. “Ready to face Pansy with me?”

“Well, no,” he replied. “But I’ll do it.”

I nodded. “That’s about how I feel, too.”

           

Pansy burst into tears and flung herself at me when she opened the door. I held her for a while. She’s never been a particularly subtle crier, all loud wails and red-faced. It made me cringe, but I hugged her nonetheless.

Finally, she rubbed her face and sniffled, regaining her composure. And then she turned to Harry and slapped him across the face.

“Wha—!” I exclaimed, astonished.

“Ow,” Harry muttered, bringing a hand up to his cheek.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Pansy yelled. “He didn’t do anything! You know he didn’t do anything! Why the hell did the Weasel interrogate me?”

“I mean, it wasn’t really a formal interrogation, he didn’t bring you to the Ministry—”

“Harry, shut up,” I urged him. “You’re making it worse.”

Pansy was fuming, glaring at Harry. “I had no way of contacting him for ages! My best friend! I had no idea where he was until he told me he was at some sort of safe house! I thought he was _dead_!”

“Did you really?” I asked.

“Well,” she sniffled. “I thought something had happened. I didn’t know what. But obviously whatever it was had been bad, or else you would have talked to me.”

“I’m sorry you worried, Pans,” I said, and I meant it.

She sighed. She was still glaring at Harry and the muscles in her shoulders and jaw were still tense as though she’d like to hit him again, but instead she said “Fine.”

She wasn’t wearing lipstick, thankfully, but her nails were impeccable. I told her so.

“Thank you,” she said, still a little miffed. “I mixed the color myself. Would you like some tea, darling?”

“Sure, thanks.”

“Never bother.”

I touched Harry’s arm as she walked away. “Are you alright?” I asked softly.

“Fine,” he grunted, his eyes downcast and his expression sour.

“She’ll be better the longer we’re here,” I said, reaching over and giving his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry. She’s been worried. She tends to lash out when she is,” I explained.

“You don’t need to make excuses for her,” he said. I shrugged and lead us into the kitchen, nodding for him to follow.

Millie and the Greengrass sisters seemed to all be out, so it was just us and Pansy. She fixed me a cup of tea and one for herself, steadfastly ignoring Harry.

“I’d like an explanation, love,” she said, sitting down next to me and leaning in with clasped hands.

I explained what I could. I downplayed the pain and fear I felt in the holding cell of the Ministry and didn’t mention the boggart at all. She was aghast that I’d just gotten my wand back today.

“They were thinking of keeping it longer,” I said, avoiding mentioning what I’d had to take to convince them otherwise. It took some strain, but after many hours, the effects of the Veritaserum were waning. I still couldn’t outright lie, and would feel the overbearing push of it if I was asked a direct question, but I could evade now without too much discomfort.

She glared at Harry, addressing him directly for the first time since her outburst. “And you let that happen?”

He raised his hands. “I didn’t want it to,” he said helplessly.

“Harry tried his best,” I said to Pansy, touching her shoulder. “Really, he’s been doing the best he can. He’s not in charge here.”

“Is that you talking, or the excuses he’s told you?”

  “Pansy…”

She shot me a mixed look of derision and resignation.

“What?”

She turned to Harry. “Be a dear and stand out the door over there, would you?”

Harry’s lips became a white line. “My job is to protect Draco.”

“And you did a phenomenal job completely isolating him away from everyone who wishes to help him. Brilliant, really. Top notch.”

“Pansy,” I said quietly, reaching out and placing a hand over her locked and whitening fingers. “Harry,” I said, meeting his eyes, which were full of stubbornness and sparking with such familiar anger behind his lenses. “Just for a minute. Please, love.”

His expression became open with surprise and then softened at my last few words. He pursed his lips and scrutinized me for a beat before nodding slowly. “Just for a little while.” He retreated slowly back outside the front door. I watched him walk. We waited until we heard the door click shut to start talking.

“Why are you letting him do all this?” she hissed at me.

“Do all what? He’s doing what he can!”

“You’ve told me that,” she said, exasperated. “But he’s Harry Potter. He can do whatever he likes. Why didn’t he fight for you when they took your wand? Why isn’t he working harder to catch whoever did this to you?”

“He’s not on the case—”

“Bullshit, Draco. He killed the Dark Lord. He has Shacklebolt panting at his feet like a dog. He’s the most powerful wizard in the world!”

I bit my lip, getting upset. “He’s trying, Pansy.”

She stared at me for a long while, analyzing my expression. “I don’t mean to make you frustrated,” she said. “I just think it’s odd. From what you’ve told me, both of you know nothing. He’s away all day, doing, what? We don’t know that. He’s not an Auror. He doesn’t study. And you’re without a wand, shoved away in this house that you can only leave if he’s with you? That’s not fair treatment, Draco. The Ministry is treating you like a criminal, and he’s letting them.”

I took a shaky breath and scratched at my Mark. “I was a criminal.”

"You did what you had to do,” she said firmly. “Which shouldn’t define you now that the war is over. Meaning that you should get the same treatment as any other witch or wizard. Having the most powerful wizard hover over you while you’re helpless, isolated, and unarmed is not fair treatment.”

I shrugged. “They could have left me in the holding cell. I think it was only because of Harry that they didn’t.”

She sighed and picked at her cuticles with a line forming between her eyebrows and red in her cheeks. “None of this is right.”

“At least I get to see you, though,” I said, trying to make her feel better. She scoffed.

“Yes, I make up for all the other horrendous shit, don’t I?”

“At least in part,” I smiled. I didn’t mention to her that I still had some Veritaserum in my system.

 

Pansy allowed Harry back in for a little while and we talked a bit more. I was glad to see her—I felt much more myself around her, free to be as sarcastic and biting as I pleased. I liked being around Harry, of course, but I thought through my words so much more around him. I didn’t have to filter myself with Pansy.

I laughed harder than I had in a while, the gut-wrenching, ugly kind of laughter that forces your jaw open and makes your stomach hurt. I sorely needed it. These past few days had all been much too serious.  
When we left I hugged her tightly, and she gave a curt nod to Harry. As we walked down the stairs I could see a muscle in his jaw tensing and saw his hands clench into fists, looking towards the doorway.

I held out my hand. “Are you ready?”

He gritted his teeth, taking my hand. “I’m going to have to be.”

We threw the door open and ran. I could see a crowd forming out of the corner of my eye, but between Harry’s speed and my long legs we managed to get outside the wards and apparate away before they got to us.

He stood in the alley by Grimmauld Place, breathing heavily, his eyes shut tightly. He dropped my hand and combed his fingers through his hair roughly. I was about to reach out to him when he started back to the safe house at a very brisk pace.

 When he opened the door and we walked inside I saw him deflate. His jaw unclenched, his shoulders relaxed, and his fingers stretched from the fists they’d been forming.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I’m fine.”

“Harry, I…” I hesitated, unsure how to continue. I held out my arms and hugged him instead.

“Thank you,” I said. “I didn’t realize…I’m sorry about Pansy. And about Diagon Alley. But thank you for taking me anyway.”

I felt his arms wrap around my waist. “Would you have given me any choice?” he asked wryly.

“Probably not,” I admitted. “But thank you anyway.”

“You’re welcome. I’m sorry it’s been difficult. I’m—”

“I know you’re trying, Harry.”

“I should be trying harder,” he mumbled into my shoulder.

“I don’t expect you to burn bridges for me.” I shrugged. “There’s only so much you can do.” I thought about what Pansy had said. She had a few good points, but I had one, too. I was a Death Eater. I knew I was unpopular for it. I knew people would spite me for it. And I accepted it.

I did terrible things under Voldemort, trying to protect myself and my family. I never killed anyone, thank Merlin, but I came close. I hurt people. I watched people die, knowing that if I tried to help, I would perish with them. I was a coward. It was the only smart thing to do, but it wasn’t right. And though I might not have changed what I did, I felt like I deserved whatever repercussions came with it.

It made me glad, though, that Harry didn’t feel the same.

He sighed into my shoulder, into the sort of loaded silence that made me think he wanted to say more, but wasn’t.

“Would you like something to eat?” he asked me.

“Not right now.”

“Alright. What would you like to do?”

“I’d like to kiss you,” I said, because it was true. He laughed, surprised, delightedly.

“Really?” he questioned, teasing lightly.

"Yes,” I answered immediately. “And I don’t like how you seem to be taking advantage of my personal predicament in this situation.”

He smiled. “I won’t draw it out, then,” he said quietly, and then we kissed.

We parted so I could take his glasses off, placing them on the armrest of the couch he was walking me backwards to. He sat down and pulled me into his lap, his hands pulling off my coat and running up and down my back. I heard it fall to the ground softly, and made short work of his own, his scarf falling with it. His stubble scratched at my chin. I ran my fingers through his hair, so much softer than I expected. He felt solid and warm and I didn’t want to stop. I felt one of his hands slip under my sweater to hold me and tensed, worried for what he would find underneath.

He felt the change in my demeanor and pulled away quickly. “Is this okay?” he asked breathlessly.

I kissed his face—on his cheeks, his forehead, his chin. I thought about my phrasing for as long as the Veritaserum would let me. “Just…I’m not ready for more,” I said finally. “I’m sorry, Harry.”

He shook his head, kissing me again. His hands stayed respectfully on my waist, over my sweater. “Don’t apologize.”

We kissed for a very long time.

 

Later, in the solitude of my room with only Etty watching, I took off my sweater. In the dim light cast by the lamp I traced my scars in the mirror. There was one very long one that ran from my left hip up to my chest. About a dozen others of various sizes slid across my torso, faintly raised, whitish and ugly.

The one slash on my cheek had faded into a faint white line that was only visible in some lights. I’d worked very hard to get it to be that subtle. I wished now that I’d put as much effort into the rest of me, but as my fingers skimmed my longest scar, I knew it would never go away completely no matter what I tried.

I sighed and threw the sweater in the corner, tugging my nightshirt on. I would show him the scars sometime, when we both were stronger, but not then.

I laid horizontally on my bed and made little lights follow the tip of my wand as I waved it through the air, petting Etty with one hand. I made bursts of white, blue, green and pink lights dance through the air until I became too tired to hold my wand up, and fell asleep to the mingled feeling of magic, the memory of Harry’s lips on mine, and the shame of the scars crossing my chest.

           


	13. This Day

“Where do you go every day?” I asked Harry abruptly the next morning. Pansy's words had been echoing in my head.

“Hm?”

“Where do you go during the day? What do you do?”

“Ah,” he said. “This and that. It depends on the day. Sometimes I help George in the shop, or help Hermione with her research. Sometimes I go to Hogwarts and give talks or help teach Defense classes. Other times they call me into St Mungo’s to make some of the patients feel better, especially on the children’s unit—that’s actually where I was headed today.”  
“Oh, alright.” I stirred me tea, not looking forward to another day in the house. I might not have been alone, but Kreacher never emerged from his den in the basement unless Harry or I called him, which was seldom. It would be the first day by myself since the boggart attack. I still couldn’t walk down that hallway without my chest constricting. It was a good thing I planned to do something else all day, something that would take most of my concentration and most of the hours until Harry returned.

“Would you like to come with me?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“To the hospital,” he said. “To see the kids. Would you like to come?”

“I really…” I started. “I don’t think that’d be a good idea. I mean, they won’t…”

He cocked his head. “None of the kids even know who you are,” he said gently. “They only know me because their parents have told them. Most of them hadn’t even started preschool when the war ended.”

I sucked my bottom lip, still harboring reservations.

“It’d be better than just staying here with the ghoul in the attic all day, wouldn’t it?” he coaxed with an optimistic smile on his face. 

“Is there really a ghoul in the attic?”

“Yeah, but he never goes into your room,” he said with a shrug. “He just sort of makes noise in the pipes every now and then.”

I rolled my eyes. “I thought I’d seen the last of Moaning Myrtle after Hogwarts.”

Harry laughed lightly. “Myrtle’s not so bad,” he said, but then backtracked when he saw my look. “Well, she’s pretty bad…”

I exhaled through my nose and finished my tea. Harry held out his arm. “Ready?”

I took it after hesitating for a beat. “I thought we can only apparate outside?”

He nodded. “That’s right.” But he put his other hand over mine, so I didn’t move away.

 

One we got to St Mungo’s I actually realized what I was about to do. For the first time, I was going out in public with Harry. Well, sort of public. I doubted any reporters could swarm the hospital the same way they’d attacked Diagon Alley, but then, I’d tried my absolute hardest to never have to pay a visit here. When I’m sick I veer between fervently denying it and melodramatically dying (but I only really do that if I don’t think it’s that bad).

“Have I mentioned that being around sick people makes me feel ill?” I muttered to Harry as he dragged me through the doorway. He exhaled through his nose and cracked a small smile, but didn’t slow any.

“Hey, Steven,” he smiled to the receptionist. “Is it alright if I bring a guest today?”

“Of course!” Steven said brightly, looking up from his papers. “Just sign whoever it is in right—there.” The grin fell off his face as soon as he met my eyes, as did the eagerness in his tone. I felt my lips tighten in response and looked down my nose at him. Not obviously, like I did when I was young and had no tact—just enough to make him feel vaguely intimidated, but not know why. I hoped. From the look of him, it seemed to be working.

“Come on, Draco.” Harry waved me over, startling me out of my staring match. I followed him quickly as he walked down the hall and he handed me a visitor’s badge to pin to my shirt.

I’m not good in hospitals. I get jumpy and feel that antiseptic smell settle on my skin. I feel like I’m breathing in recycled air and it makes my head hurt. But it was still a million times better than staying in that house alone, even though I had something planned.

“Hey, Liam!” I heard Harry say happily a few steps ahead of me. He was in the doorway of a small boy’s room, the white of the walls covered over in finger paintings and scribbles. The little boy couldn’t have been older than six or so, with spindly limbs and a half-shaved head that made him look preposterous.

“Harry!” the little boy—Liam—shouted. He jumped off the bed and ran over to him, hugging his legs tightly together.

“How have you been?” Harry asked.

“I’ve been good,” he said, wiping his nose with the palm of his hand. I wrinkled my own. “The medics are still doing tests on why I hear the radio in my left ear. They cut my hair to try to see if there was anything to do with the rest of my head, but they’re stumped. Also the pudding here is still gross.” He abruptly turned and stared at me. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Draco,” I said, leaning closer to Harry as though he could protect me from this strange germy mucus-covered creature.

“I’m Liam.”

“I figured.”

Liam nodded. “Do you want to see my drawings?”

I opened my mouth to say what would have been a “no”, but Liam was already gathering his papers. “Look, see, that’s my mom. And that’s my dog. Her name is Alice. And that’s my cat!”

“They’re very pretty.”

“Yeah,” he said, not looking at me. “Do you know I have a radio in my ear?”

“I did not.”

“Yeah, I can hear the radio people talk all the time. Sometimes if I walk over there—” He pointed “—and over there I can hear different stations. Also sometimes it gets static-y if I tilt my head like this.” He proceeded to turn his head in a rather painful looking angle.

“Then don’t do that,” I said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Did you know Harry drew that?” He pointed to a truly horrid tick figure on one paper. “It’s me.”

“It looks _exactly_ like you,” I said earnestly. Harry _tsk_ d.

Liam got Harry locked into conversation about any and every random thought that flitted through the boy’s head until Harry gently extricated himself. “I have to see a few other kids,” he explained.

“But I’m your favorite, right?”

“Definitely,” Harry said with a smile, patting him on the lopsided head. “Don’t forget it. If you’re still here, I’ll be back in a week, okay bud?”

“Okay!”

We wandered through the hallway, usually stopping to talk at this room or that. Many rooms were doubles, unlike Liam’s. Harry explained to me that the little boy had at one point had a roommate, but he was released a few weeks ago, which made me happy. The context of that sentence had made me hold my breath.

We went into one room and there was a curtain separating one little girl from the other. The girl Harry was talking to had curls that rivaled his mess and a cast on one arm. She was very, very excited to see Harry—and very loud.

Because the curtain wasn’t so very big—only meant to give the girls privacy from one another, but still within sight of the nurses and healers—I could see the girl on the opposite bed roll her eyes. Or, well, eye. Her right one was covered in a bandage.  I smirked and raised my eyebrows. She couldn’t have been more than eleven years old, and yet her facial expressions were reminiscent of those I used to see in a mirror.

She gestured for me to come over.

“Are you here to see Larissa?” she asked me.

“No, not really,” I said. “I’m just here for the ride.”

“Good,” she said and leaned towards me conspiratorially. “Because I think Larissa is _awful_.”

“Why is that?” I asked her.

She threw me an exasperated expression. “Really? I have to explain it?”

Larissa shrieked again and I laughed. “No, you don’t. I’m Draco.”

“My name is Melanie,” she said, holding her hand out to shake. “Melanie Choy.”

I grinned. I did like this girl. We shook hands.

“So,” I asked her, “what’re you in for?”

She raised her chin as much as she could in the bed. “I got in an argument with one of my classmates,” she said loftily. “I won. He’s down the hall. But one of his friends hit me in the eye with a stinging hex when I wasn’t paying attention.”

I cringed. “Ow!”

She nodded solemnly. “The healers were afraid that my vision would be messed up, but they’re trying a new potion and they said it’s doing well.”

“Well, I’m impressed,” I said. “I got into more than my fair share of fights at Hogwarts, and I never managed to send anyone to the hospital.” I’m fairly glad, at that. I didn’t mention that Harry had managed to earn me a brief stay here in sixth year.

“You should be,” she said haughtily. “I’ve been practicing. Howie is a tosser.”

“I bet he is.”

“He’ll be in here for another week at least,” she said, though as an accomplished liar myself, I could tell that was untrue. “They told me I’d be out of here in three days, but I’ll still have to keep this stupid eye patch on for another two weeks,” she pouted.

“Well I think it makes you look very rakish,” I said, and then, realizing she probably didn’t know what rakish meant, “tough, like someone you wouldn’t want to cross.”

“I’m both of those things already.”

I leaned back and laughed heartily, surprised. “I bet you are. You’re a first year, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“What house are you in?” Despite how much she reminded me of myself, I wasn’t sure if she’d say Slytherin. I remembered how I’d begged the Sorting Hat to put me in that House, like my father, like my mother. I couldn’t bear it if I wasn’t in the same House as my family—I would have been such a disappointment. I wondered how the House dynamic had changed, now that that sort of pressure was gone. Though, if not Slytherin, _I_ most certainly wouldn’t have been sorted into Gryffindor, I can say that much as a definite. Maybe Ravenclaw. But it was too late now, anyway.

“Slytherin, obviously,” she said, with the sort of pride that made me grin. Most students were afraid of being sorted into Slytherin—I’d read in the papers it was the smallest House by far in recent years, because nobody wanted to be associated with the Dark Arts, and everyone was telling their kids to tell the Sorting Hat such.

“Good choice,” I said. “I was a Slytherin. Want to have some advice?’

“What’s that?”

“Learn how to make a good heating charm. The common room may not be so bad now, but when it’s the dead of winter and the lake freezes, you’re going to need it. And bring a lot of candles. It gets gloomy.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Harry pulled back the curtain a bit. “Draco?”

“Hm?”

“I’m going to visit a few other kids, would you like to come with me?”

I arched my eyebrows at Melanie, and she said, “Sorry, he can’t right now.”

Harry laughed lightly. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll be a few doors down, or in the hall over at most. And Draco,” he said, handing me a few Galleons, “there’s a café back near the reception in case you get hungry, I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”

I nodded, pocketing the money and secretly delighted. It would make what I had planned for later on much easier. “Alright.”

Harry pushed a lock of my hair that had shaken free behind my ear and left with a small smile and a small wave.

Melanie looked at me. “He likes you.”

I looked back. “Yes.”

She nodded. “Good for you.”

I laughed loudly. “Quite.”

We were quiet for a small while, and then she said, “I have a question.”

I cocked my head. “Yeah?”

“I want to continue reading this book,” she said, picking it up off her nightstand, “but it hurts my good eye to read so much. Since you clearly don’t want to spend time with Larissa, could you read a few pages to me?”

I snorted. I loved her. “Of course.” I took the book and opened it, removing the bookmark and putting it on the bed. I’m not sure how long I read to her, but after a while I felt Harry’s hand on my shoulder.

“We have to go,” he told me quietly.

“Oh,” I said, blinking. “Oh, alright. Here.” I put the bookmark on the page and put the book back on the nightstand. “I stopped right at the third paragraph. It was nice meeting you, Melanie.”

“You as well,” she said. “Don’t think you need to come back,” she said archly. “I’ll be gone. Howie won’t be, though. You can see him.” She waved her hand down the hall. “Thanks for the advice. And the reading.”

“You’re welcome,” I told her. “And I don’t think I’ll be reading to Howie. Whatever you did, I bet he deserved it.”

She nodded solemnly. “He totally did.”

I laughed. I saw Harry nod to her, and she to him, and then we left. Thankfully, Larissa had fallen asleep.

“We’re leaving already?”

He cocked his head. “Draco, we’ve been here for hours. I need lunch.”

“Ah,” I said. “I didn’t realize it’d been that long.”

“I’m glad you made a new friend,” he smiled.

“Melanie is cool,” I said. “I don’t usually say that about kids.”

He threaded his fingers through mine. “I’m glad.”

 

After lunch, I asked Harry if I could stay at Grimmauld Place.

“It’s alright if you come with me,” he said, looking a bit troubled. “I’m just going over to Nimbus Corp, they want to talk to me about sponsoring their new broom—something like that, at least. I think they’re trying to make a deal with the Harpies and think that if I get on their side, it’ll convince them. It would be boring, but I was thinking they might want us to test out some new brooms, and we—” He cut himself off by biting his lip, realizing he was babbling.

“I would love to, Harry, really,” I said, touching his shoulder as I walked to put our plates in the sink, forgetting for the fifth time that day that I actually had magic readily available to me. “But I have something I need to do. Alone, if…that’s alright.”

“Sure,” he said, still looking a bit dejected.

I kissed him on the cheek, waving my wand to start the water. How good it felt to be able to use magic! “I promise we’ll go flying another day,” I reassured him. “Though I don’t know why you’re so eager to lose again.”

He grinned and kissed me back. “Scared, Malfoy?”

I smirked at him. “You wish.”

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Once Harry was gone I took a deep breath and summoned Kreacher.

“Yes, Mister Malfoy?”

“I have a shopping list for you,” I told him, handing him a torn piece of paper. Honestly, I don’t know why all our professors at Hogwarts made us write on parchment with quills. Pen and paper is so much easier. “I’m not sure what we have here in the house—I looked in the library and in the cupboards and found a few of the non-perishable items I can use, and I brought back some from my flat, but the rest you can buy with this.” I gave him the small handful of coins that Harry had given me earlier. “I can work with what I have, but please try to be quick, if you can.”

He bowed and disapperated with a loud crack. I exhaled. Kreacher’s presence made me very nervous. I wondered if he stayed in the basement all the time, or if he never left. Probably the latter. Which also meant he probably heard the boggart attack in its entirety and decided to do nothing. Which, in the end, was fine. If I absolutely had to be rescued, I’d rather be rescued by Harry than Kreacher. One was much more welcoming than the other.

I started on the ingredients that I already had, slicing and cubing and grinding them with a mortar and pestle I found from the top cupboard.

I don’t know how long I had been at it, but when Kreacher returned, I brought everything up from the kitchen to my room, where I had a cauldron waiting. I transfigured a lantern to act as a sort of fireplace over which to put it and began mixing everything together meticulously.

I had the recipe memorized. I had made it so many times for myself, finding it more convenient to do so while at Hogwarts with the contents of Severus’ ingredients closet always readily available to me than buying it was.

The recipe called for simmering above heat for fifty minutes before stirring. During this time, I sat down to write a long overdue letter.

 _Dear Mother_ , I began.

I explained my situation for what must have been the hundredth time, along with the extensive measures I was taking to ensure my safety. I told her I would visit as soon as I could. I told her that the reason it had taken me so long to write was that I wanted to explain this all in person, and that there was nothing to worry about. I told her I loved her, and I signed off.

Then, I crumpled it.

I re-wrote the same letter three times, each attempt very similar to the last. Sighing, I resignedly folded the last one and placed it carefully in an envelope. I would never write the one I really wanted to—around my parents, my way with words so often falls short—but this would have to do.

I returned to my work, and after fifty minutes on the dot, I began stirring it counterclockwise. Right as it was about to be finished, I added in my own ingredient, a bit from that lovely Jasmine plant. It made it smell much better, even if the taste was still undeniably vile.

I managed to cork it in vials right as I heard Harry come home. I gave the cauldron a quick Scourgify, although I knew later I would have to clean it out manually—the residual magic from spellwork always interfered with the properties of potions ingredients. I hit the lights and shoved everything into a corner, putting the about half vials into one of the smaller boxes I had and shoving the rest into one of my drawers.

“I got us takeout again,” he said as I descended the stairs, holding up the bag.

“If you’d like, I could make us dinner sometime,” I offered. “I don’t mind. I have less to do than you, anyway.”

“Don’t feel like you have to.”

I shrugged. “I like cooking. It’s kind of like potions.”

“Oh,” he laughed. “You wouldn’t like the way I cook then.”

“You cook breakfast fine.”

“Yes, but that’s breakfast. If I’m cooking dinner or anything, and there’s a recipe—”

“You take it as a suggestion and do what you will with it?”

“Yeah,” he said, setting everything out on the table. “How did you know?”

“That’s how you are, Potter,” I said to him, sending some spoons soaring our way.

He laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I suppose so.” He pushed a few cartons towards me. “Here, this is yours.”

I knew one of them was the same mild curry he had gotten me last time, but I didn’t know what the second carton was. I opened it. “Rice?”

“Coconut rice,” he explained. “It’s sweet. I thought you’d like it.”

I tried it and was delighted. “It’s brilliant!”

He grinned, digging into his own food. “Good. I’m glad.”

I ate much too much for dinner. I set up a fire in the living room and motioned for Harry to come sit with me.

I pulled a blanket over the both of us and snatched a book I’d been reading off the coffee table, summoning my glasses from my room. I leaned on him as I read. He settled into the couch and closed his swollen eyes, still dark underneath from lack of sleep. I thought about what I should do with my concoction, but decided to leave it until we were both getting ready for bed.

After many pages and two chapters, I felt his hand moving through my hair and his lips on my temple.  

“What was that for?” I asked, marking my page with a finger.

“You look cute in glasses,” he grinned.

I scoffed, embarrassed. “You’re just biased.”

He took his own off and squinted at them. “I could probably get something done about them, if I wanted to. Hermione told me all about this one Optometrist her parents know who does laser eye surgery.”

I furrowed my brow. “They put lasers? In your eyes?” I didn’t see how that would help his eyesight. If anything, having lasers shoot from his eyes would hinder it.

“Well, no. I mean, yeah, sort of. They use a laser to make tiny cuts in your eyes and fix the shape of it inside. At least, I think that’s what they do.”

I shuddered. “That sounds barbaric.”

He shrugged. “I don’t think it actually hurts all that much. A lot of Muggles do it.”

“Ah, well, if all the Muggles are doing it, we should too.”

“Exactly.”

“Hm.” I snuggled closer to him for a moment, reveling in his warmth. Then, sighing, I ran a hand through my hair and stood up.

“Going to bed already?”

“No,” I replied. “But I have something for you.”

“What is it?” he asked, also standing.

“Oh, you can stay down here,” I said. “Or come up with me, it doesn’t matter. I can carry it down for you.”

He cocked his head in befuddlement. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“I didn’t get you it,” I replied, walking up the stairs. I could hear Harry walking slowly behind me.

“Here,” I said, opening the door to my bedroom. “It’s just in here.” I retrieved the box and walked the two steps back to my doorway, where Harry was perched, still looking uncertain. I handed it to him.

He squinted when he opened it. “What...?”

“It’s Dreamless Sleep,” I said, tugging my sweater over my hands and fiddling with my hair. “I know you’ve been having trouble sleeping, and you always forget to go to the store and fetch some for yourself, so I figured I’d just make it for you. There’s enough in there to last you about three weeks or so, if you take the right dose.” I could feel my cheeks heating up, and could only look at him in glances before staring at the floor.

“Draco,” Harry said, and the warmth in his voice made me look up. “Thank you.” He ran his free hand through my hair and held the back of my head gently as he pressed a kiss to my forehead, then my cheek, then my lips.

“It’s nothing, really,” I said self-consciously. “It’s not all that advanced, as long as you follow the recipe. I needed to make some for myself, anyway. I’ve been running out of the melatonin pills I usually use.”

“It’s something,” he said, softly but firmly. “It’s definitely something.”

“Oh,” I said, my voice small from embarrassment. “Okay.”

 He smiled and kissed me again, deeper this time, just long enough to make me breathless. I held the side of his face by his ear, feeling his stubble underneath my thumb.

“Goodnight,” he said gently, my hair falling through his fingers.

“Goodnight.”

The next morning, he didn’t have bags under his eyes.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“You’ve been quiet today,” he said, his expression troubled. “Is everything alright?”

I took a long breath and wrapped my fingers around my mug. Harry was right about one thing—it was inexplicably calming to have a hot drink in front of me, though I didn’t need it on this day in particular. I was feeling a certain type of profound stillness that I rarely experience.

“I’d like to go somewhere,” I said. “If you’ll let me take you.”

Harry nodded. “Where is it?”

I set my mug down. “I’ll show you,” I said, standing up. “Though you’ll want a heavy coat—it gets chilly.”

 

As I climbed the stairs to the wall surrounding the city I was hit by a wave of nostalgia. I breathed in the strong salt air and listened to the gulls screech and wheel overhead. The slow, rhythmic the push and pull of the waves breaking on the sandy shore lulled me into a state of melancholy calm. I picked my way through the cannons which overlooked the sea and leaned on the crumbling, elbow-high barrier, feeling the gentle breeze tug at my hair and scarf. Soft conversations not meant for me in a foreign language so familiar drifted through my ears. The sun was high and bright and ricocheted off the ocean, but it was beautiful despite the pain. Like many things, I mused.

Harry didn’t ask me what this little coastal town on the edge of France meant to me. I was glad he didn’t. I doubt I could have ever explained.

I don’t like this day. This day, so many years ago, was the day I made the decision to take an oath that led me down a very dark path. This day was _the_ pivotal moment in my personal history. This day was the day that I ignored the niggling voices of doubt in the back of my head and officially joined the darker side of the war. This was the day I became marked, physically, forever, though of course I had already belonged. My father, with all his misguided good intentions, had made sure of that.  

I thought of the shrieks of happiness I used to make, weaving through the old and unused cannons around the wall with the children of my mothers’ friends. This wall, these cannons, they were all built for war. In some places, you can still see the mars from the shrapnel. And yet this is where we played, unaware. Unaware of what once passed. Unaware of what was yet to come.

I saw one of those children later. His name was Jean. He had freckles across his nose and curls that stuck all to one side that was just like when we were younger and blood that flowed from the corner of his mouth that was not. He went to Beauxbatons. He was two years older than me.

Now I was older than he would ever be.

He had wanted to be a healer.

His childhood laugh echoed in my ears.

The gulls cried over my head.

I ran my fingers over the raised flesh of my forearm. I hadn't wanted to be what I became.

I wondered if anyone was still here who remembered him. I thought so. I hoped so.

I hoped I didn’t see them, whoever they were. I hoped I did. I hoped they didn’t know me. I hoped they did.

I wanted to disappear into the waves. I wanted to become the ocean, vast and powerful and uncaring. But I was too weak to be the ocean, too fragile to be the sea. I was and always would be stuck as myself, damaged and broken, pockmarked by the past.

I watched the boats sail out to the horizon and wished they could sail me away from myself somehow.

I didn’t like being me.

I didn’t like being reminded of who I was, and this day always did that.

I watched the waves until the sun dipped beneath them. Solemn, tired and shivering, I turned to Harry, standing silently at my side.

“We can go now.”


	14. Seeing Mother

“Draco?” Harry asked me the next morning as I walked down the stairs, wrapped in my biggest sweater. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah,” I smiled at him. “Yeah, thanks. And for coming with me—thank you, too.”

He kissed my temple. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Do you ever sleep in?” I asked as we walked, seeing breakfast already on the table.

He shrugged. “Occasionally. A few weeks ago I woke up at nine.”

“Oh _wow_ , I said, purposely exaggerating. “ _Nine_. Well, you’ve just wasted the whole day by then!”

He laughed. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”

“If I could sleep all day, I definitely would.”

“You haven’t slept here all that much.”

“That’s because it’s _here_ ,” I said, taking a forkful of eggs.

“That’s fair.”

We were quiet for a while, eating, but I saw that Harry wasn’t wolfing his food like usual. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I just—your mom—”

“Oh, did she write back already?” I was surprised. I figured the owls would take at least a week.

“Well, not really.” He scratched his head. “She and I have had sort of, uh, correspondence I guess?”

I looked at him funnily. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said, “after the war and your trials and everything I just didn’t think she wanted to see me. But I really wanted to thank her, so I owled her once it was in the papers that she’d moved to Paris, and she owled back, and so now we…talk, occasionally.”

“Thank her?” I asked. “For what?”

“Oh.” His eyebrows strived to meet his hairline. “Oh, that’s right, you don’t know. She saved my life.”

"Right. You mentioned that briefly before. What did you mean?”

“Well, it was in the Forbidden Forest. She lied to Voldemort and told him I was dead. I’m not really sure why…” He mussed his hair up some more. “Maybe it was because she was having doubts, or trying to protect you, or something, but whatever it was, I’m just really glad she did.”

“Oh,” I said, rather dumbfounded. “I never knew.”

“Yeah,” he said, pushing the eggs around on his plate. “Well, uh, so I’ve been trying to keep her posted on everything that’s been happening because I know it’s been hard for you, and she’d like us to visit, if that’s alright.”

“She wants us to visit?” I asked. “ _You’ve_ been writing to _my_ mother about _me_?”

“Well, you weren’t!” he exclaimed. “I owled her the day you got here.”

I ran my hands over my face. “I need to apologize to her.”

“Well, yes,” Harry smirked. “But she sort of expected you’d do something like this.”

“Really?”

“She said that you probably wouldn’t write to her unless you could pretend everything was totally fine.”

I exhaled loudly. “I mean, she’s not wrong.”

Harry laughed.  
“When does she want us to see her?”

“Today, for lunch.”

“Ah,” I said. “I’ll need to find something nice to wear. I packed all my best clothes away, I need to sort through them all.”

“Do you?” he asked, a bit concerned. “I’m not sure what nice clothes I have.”

I looked skeptically at the sweater he was wearing. It was faded and stretched and had a hole in one of the cuffs. “I’m not sure what nice clothes you have either.”

I stood to go to my room, but Harry stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Yes?”

“I didn’t read the letter you sent, but your mother, does she know that we’re…?”

“That we’re what? Living together?”

“Well, no, I told her that. But that we’re…doing whatever we’re doing.”

I sighed and pushed my hair back. “No, she probably doesn’t. Considering she still hopes I marry a nice pureblood girl, I figured that would be too much information for her.”

“Oh,” he said, surprised. “So she doesn’t know you’re…are you gay?” he asked me with a hint of a smile. “You never actually said.”

“Yes, I am, and no, she doesn’t,” I said curtly. “And I’d like to keep it that way.”

Harry bit his lip. “Honestly, Draco, I know it’s not my place, I really don’t think she’d mind. She adores you.”

“Yes, well,” I grumbled sourly. “It truly isn’t your place.”

And with that, I left before Harry could continue talking.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Are you ready?”

“Not yet!” I called back, adjusting my hair in the mirror. I’d been keeping Harry waiting for about half an hour now, but I needed to look good if I was going to see Mother for the first time in ages.

I ran my hair over it one last time and sighed impatiently. It would have to do.

I’d managed to dig some nice-ish robes out of one of the boxes—it was in an outdated style, but I didn’t really wear robes so much anymore, and I certainly couldn’t afford to throw them away like I had when I was younger.

I saw Harry waiting for me at the end of the stairs and laughed.

“What?” he asked, his brow furrowing. “Is my outfit too much?”

He was wearing robes that you’d be more likely to see at some sort of impressive gala than a luncheon with my mom, sleek and minimalist but obviously very fine. Of course, the latest in style.

“No,” I said thoughtfully. “Surprisingly, I think those will be fine.”

“Why surprisingly?”

I ran my hands through his hair, which was just as messy as always, trying to tame it. “You dressed yourself.”

He barked a laugh. A curl sprang back out of place, followed shortly by all the others. “Your hair is impossible, though.”

“I’ve tried cutting it,” he said, tugging on a lock. “It just grows back the next day. It’s impervious to everything I’ve tried.”

“What does Hermione use?” I’d seen her in the papers some, moving her way steadily up in the Ministry, aiming for a career in Magical Law and talking about all the causes she supported. Her hair looked much better than it had when she was in school. Like it was actually part of her, instead of some kind of parasitic wild animal that attached itself to her head.

“I dunno,” Harry shrugged.

“Maybe you should find out.”

 

“Draco!”

Before I could even knock, the door bust open and my mother swept me into a hug. Despite being more than a head taller than her, hugging her always made me feel like I was eleven years old again, just about to be sent off to school for the first time.

“Hi, Mum,” I said, the words a little difficult to force out through the lump in my throat. “I—I’m sorry I—”

“It’s alright, darling. I understand.”

I nodded into her shoulder and bit my lip.

After we were through having a moment, she turned to Harry and shook his hand politely. I could tell by his posture that he was nervous, meeting her again, but if she was anything other than pleased she certainly didn’t show it. “Harry. Please, come in. Windsy has just set up lunch for us.”

Windsy was the one remaining house elf my family had. She had worked with my mother personally all throughout her childhood—none of us really knew how old Windsy was. When given the chance to leave our family by the Ministry, she resolutely told them she wanted to stay with Missus Black. She never got around to using the change in my mother’s name, largely because she, as well as most of our house elves, never really took to my father.

The food looked and tasted delicious, of course. It was on beautiful China that I had a feeling was transfigured. Mother was very polite, speaking of her job in the French Ministry and asking Harry how his work was going as an Auror. He began clumsily explaining that he wasn’t sure that he wanted to be an Auror and, in fact, wasn’t sure what he wanted to do at all.

“It’s something I believe that changes with time,” Mum said. “Don’t worry about figuring out your whole life just yet. I tried to do that with Draco, and you see where we are now.”

My face burned but I didn’t say anything. I know better than to give sass to my mother. She was my mum, but she was still a Black.

When Windsy appeared to clear the dishes I thanked her quietly. Her eyes widened, startled—I don’t know when the last time I thanked her was, if at all.

“You’re most welcome, Master Draco,” she replied. I thanked Merlin that she hadn’t become insane in her old age like Kreacher seemed to.

I looked up and saw my mother watching me. She took a sip of her tea and asked Harry another question, about what I’m not sure. 

I thought about the question Harry asked me earlier. About coming out to my parents.

I hate that. I hated that then and I still hate it now. “Coming out”. Like it has to be some big event. Like I’ve been hiding myself away somewhere. My sexuality is only a very small part of me, and a very boring small part of me at that. There are many much more interesting things to talk about, I assure you.

I thought about how many conversations I’d had with my mom before we were removed from each other, about anything. Everything. When Father stayed late at the Ministry I used to come up to her room with her after dinner and we’d sit on my parents’ bed and just talk for hours. We talked a lot about Hogwarts and how our experiences differed. We talked a lot about her family history, and how although she disagreed with her family for their treatment of her black sheep of a sister, she disagreed with her sister for going against their family. It was something we talked about a lot, in detail. How it was good to have strong beliefs but it was also good to be tactful. How there was always a time and a place to express an opinion. My mother didn’t blindly follow my father—but she rarely voiced an opinion, because she knew that her silence made her speech that much more powerful. It's no wonder, then, that she could have saved Harry's life and lied to Voldemort's face: she was that kind of surprising when she wanted to be.

She talked about the Black family sometimes, about how her parents were distant in that way, about how Bella became one extreme and Andromeda became another. My mother was in the middle, as always. It’s what made her well liked. Never too much of one thing or another, not an attention seeker but not a rebel. It was a difficult balancing act she did, but she did it.

She used to spoil me so much. My family has so many photos of me. My entire childhood is extremely well documented. She would buy me anything and everything I asked for and many things I did not. She hugged me every single night before bed and when I was in a bad mood she would make all my favorite foods ( _she_ would, not any of the house elves—she wouldn’t let them touch a thing). She would fret over me when I was sick and brush my hair and pile thick, fluffy blankets on my bed.

I think she did all this because she was trying to give me a childhood she hadn’t experienced. I remember one day eavesdropping on one of Mum’s conversations with her friends when I was ten or eleven, and what I heard made me feel guilty.

My father was always more difficult to please. And, I think, small boys have such an intrinsic connection with their fathers—at least, if their fathers are any good. It hurt that he was always working and didn’t have much time around the manor, even if when he was there he tried very hard to be a good father. I made up for it by talking about him constantly. My mum’s friend said that with her little girls it was the same sort of thing, but they couldn’t stop talking about _her_ instead, and that made me feel like I’d been leaving out my own mum. When I asked her about it later, though, she just laughed.

“Love,” she told me, “you are exactly what I could have ever hoped for.”

My parents never had any other children, which many pureblood households found strange. Why stop at one if you knew your bloodline was superior? What if something happened? What if he never married, or was infertile, or one of those blasted homosexuals? How would he carry on the family line?

I think my mum was the driving force in that. She came from a huge family, and about a third of her family tree is completely estranged. She didn’t want me to have the same sort of strained relationship with my siblings that she had had with hers, and so she just refused to have any others. I’m not sure if having siblings would have made me better or worse as a child—I may have been less spoiled, but even now I still don’t share well. I could just as easily have been a complete terror to everyone.

I was so invested in my relationship with my mother. I knew she loved me very much, and I knew she cared for me, but I didn’t want to break what we had. I knew she would stay by me—the whole thing wasn’t as catastrophic as that, at least, not with her—but I didn’t want our relationship to change. Change is something I’ve never dealt with well. It gives me anxiety and keeps me up at night. And honestly, her not knowing was never really a barrier of anything anyway. It’s not like I talked to my mom about my love life. And nothing was ever serious enough to prompt me to talk to her about. Honestly, the most fully-formed sort of a plan I ever had if I ever found someone I wanted to actually be with for an extended period of time was just to call them my roommate for as long as I could. I had never actually seriously considered coming out to either of my parents before Harry brought it up, and that in itself says something about how our characters are very, very different. I just never felt the need to be unnecessarily masochistic in the name of bravery and righteousness, unlike the Golden Boy.

Another reason I couldn’t tell her, I mused, was because she would most likely tell my father. And that was a whole can of worms I didn’t want to open. Whereas my mother’s traditional pureblood mentality had been tempered by the way she watched her family splinter, my father had no sort of background. If the Malfoys were anything, it was assured in their own superiority—a trait I unfortunately upheld. All it took to shake that particulat characteristic was the constant threat of an extremely painful death for myself and my family as well as permanent imprisonment and complete social ostracism. I was entirely sure that although my dad would never _support_ my sexuality, he would have tolerated it had it not been for the difficult question of producing an heir. And although muggles have all sorts of cool things like sperm donation and surrogate pregnancies and whatnot, I knew _my_ father would _never_ consider any sort of muggle technique to get a grandchild. Either way, I was completely sure that, on my father’s end, he would never know. And he never needed to. He was locked up on numerous life sentences in Azkaban. It was the type of incarceration where your life just completely stopped. He’d had everything taken from him—I didn’t want to take the son he thought he had away from him too, and if anyone had to, _I_ certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. I felt strongly that he’d been tortured enough. And also I was afraid of how his face would crumple when I broke the news. So, yeah, the longer I thought about Harry’s point, the firmer my belief became that I was completely and entirely right. It was better for everyone if they didn’t know. Just because my life wasn’t in danger and I wouldn’t get disowned—I was fortunate in that aspect, at least, that I knew my parents loved me enough to figure they would try to navigate around such a disappointing characteristic rather than completely exiling me—didn’t mean I had any sort of _need_ to let them know what sort of person I was attracted to.

I mean it would have been nice if they could have known and also been supportive. But I knew my parents. My mum would have told me it was fine, told me she didn’t care, but advised me to be discreet. Advised me not to tell many people. Not to talk about it too much. You wouldn’t want to anger people who could help you one day. She would have let me talk to her about it, but I doubted she would have been enthusiastic about it. She would just try to convince me to seclude myself even more than I already was.

I blinked, realizing I had been staring at the same plate of half eaten food for a very long time.

“Draco, love,” Mother asked, looking concerned. “Are you feeling well?”

“Yes, Mum.”  
“Have you been going outside enough?”

“ _Yes_ , Mum.”

“He doesn’t like to go outside,” she said to Harry. “He used to never let us put protection charms on him because he sad they itched, and he would always get burned. Would you make sure he goes outside for me?”

Harry nodded. “He’s not my keeper, Mum,” I argued.

She arched an eyebrow. “Does the Ministry think so too?” she asked, taking a sip of her drink.

I shrugged and went back to staring at my food.

“Also, darling, I think you may be vitamin D deficient again. You’re just as pale as you were. Have you scheduled an appointment with the doctor?”

I sighed. “Thanks, mum, I will.”

Both her eyebrows rose higher. “Would you like to repeat yourself in a more convincing tone of voice?”

“Sorry, Mother,” I said sheepishly. I glanced over to see Harry trying not to laugh and felt even more like melting. If it was just my mother, or just Potter, it would have been fine—but it was both of them, and that I simply couldn’t handle.

 

“I like your mum,” Harry said. My mother had offered her floo to us as a means to get back home, but Harry knew of a few portkeys within apparition distance that would get us roughly where we needed to go to get back home, and he said he wanted to walk around. “I was nervous, meeting her again after so long, but I like her.”

I nodded. “I’m glad.”

He nodded back and side-eyed me a bit. “You were very quiet, though.”

I shrugged. “Mum and I talk a lot more when we’re alone. And I was thinking, anyway.”

“About what?”

“A lot of different things. Your question.”

“Mm.” He adjusted his glasses. “I still haven’t changed my mind.”

“Neither have I.”

“Yeah.” A metro sign to our left caught Harry’s eye. “Hey, you asked me why I don’t know how to use the Underground.”

“Well, I just thought it was a little strange—weren’t you raised by Muggles? That’s what all the papers said.”

“Surprisingly, they got that right. But they didn’t really ever take me out. And when I lived in my flat, I never had to use the U.”

I nodded. “Because you could either apparate or walk, right.”

“Well, no, actually,” he grinned, a mischievous light in his eyes. “I do something else.”

I scowled at him, confused.

He bit his lip. “I can…show you it, if you’d like. I chained it up in the front and put a distraction spell on it, so none of the Muggles or anyone can really focus on it. You’ve seen it already, you just don’t remember.”

“Seen _what_?”

“I’ll show you.” He held out his hands. “I’ll be right back, I swear, like ten minutes at most.”

“I’ll go get a coffee,” I said. “And try not to think about whatever bad idea you might be dragging me into.”

“You’ll think it’s a great idea once you see it,” he said excitedly, kissing me on the cheek and ducking into an alley to apparate away from and watchful muggles.

 

Harry was, like always, as good as his word, and had returned within ten minutes looking proud and wheeling an absolute _monstrosity_ from the shadows of the alley.

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“Nope.”

“Why do you own that thing?”

“Well, my godfather had it originally, but—”

“No, I mean why do _you_ have it? You drove a car straight into _the_ most dangerous inanimate thing on the Hogwarts campus, and that’s really saying something, because there were a lot of dangerous things on those grounds.”

“Actually, that was Ron. I was just there.”

“That still doesn’t help your case at all.”

“Would you like to ride it with me?” he asked, holding out a helmet.

“After what I’ve just said, why the hell would I ever get on that machine with you?”

“It can fly,” he added.

“It can?”

“It definitely can.” He saw me hesitating. “Come on, Draco! You’ll love it! I promise you’ll love it. I’ve put so many protection spells on this thing, it’s impossible to crash. I promise. Hermione wouldn’t let me ride it until she had checked it out herself and put whatever spells she thought were necessary on it. It’s the safest thing on the planet.”

I made a show of sighing, but was trying to bite back a grin. “You’re not going to let this go.”

“No, I’m not. You might as well just give in now.”

“Alright,” I said. “Give me the damn helmet.”

Harry whooped with glee, causing quite a few heads to turn, and started up the bike. I sat behind him and was trying to figure out how to position myself so that we still had a respectable-ish distance between us before Harry reached back and yanked my arms around him. “You’re going to want to hold on tight,” he yelled over the engine. And then, terrifyingly, we were moving. I lurched forward trying not to fall and held Harry so tightly that the laugh he had been making at me became a weak sort of grunt. But he didn’t complain, so I stayed there.

Eventually I got used to the motorcycle enough so that I didn’t feel like I was in imminent mortal danger whenever I even attempted to unstuck the entirety of my person from him and began to enjoy the ride. Even with the start and stop Parisian traffic, the brief periods of movement were amazing. And it was so much faster than on foot, with a better view than the metro, and nobody else you had to worry about like on the bus—and Harry was extremely close, that was another choice perk of the trip. It was exhilarating, putting my safety so much under his control and knowing absolutely that I would be completely fine. Watching the road speed past us, feeling the wind pull at my clothes, hearing the bike underneath us. It was so much, and it was so much fun.

After riding around Paris for about an hour or so, Harry slowed to a stop and we dismounted. “So,” he asked, wheeling the bike, “do you want to fly?”

“The only reason I did not object to stopping was because I thought that was what we were about to do.”

“Well, we can’t fly here,” he said. “Ron and I got his dad in some serious trouble for flying a magical object around a densely populated muggle area. But I was thinking, since you know the area better than I do, if you knew of a rural area that we could go to…”

“Say no more,” I said, and we left.

 

“I am never flying on a broom again,” I yelled when we finally stopped.

“The motorcycle is off, you don’t need to scream,” Harry grinned lopsidedly, his hair a complete and utter mess.

“That was AMAZING!” I screamed. I was so hopped up on adrenaline and wonder that I was practically vibrating and I was in a better mood than I could ever remember having. He laughed. “I can’t believe you didn’t take me out on that before,” I told him. “That was…Merlin. Oh my god.”

The grin he was wearing split his face. “If I had known you would like it that much, I would have done so earlier.”

“Oh my god,” I said, taking a deep breath. “That was amazing, Harry.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” he said, trying to finger comb down the mess of his hair.

I caught his hands with mine and started working on his tangles. It took me about ten seconds to realize it was a hopeless cause, so I kissed him instead.

“Thank you, Harry.”

I could feel him smiling against my lips. “You’re welcome.”

 


	15. Scars

 

The next morning Harry was already gone when I woke up. I could tell before I descended the stairs that he wasn’t there because I couldn’t hear the noise he usually makes—the clattering of pans, opening and shutting drawers, humming occasionally. There was a plate of food and a mug of tea with a warming charm on it in the kitchen and a little note saying he left to talk to Ron about any new developments in my case, which was nice, though I would have preferred his company.

I let Etty walk down with me. We’ve managed to go through pretty much all the floors except the basement, which both of us are afraid to touch because it has been claimed by Kreacher as his own. Anything malignant enough to hurt my cat has been thrown out, including that horrible boggart. I’m not sure what Harry did with it, but I’m glad it’s not here. Maybe he donated it to Hogwarts to torture more third years with.

I ate the food slowly and considered what “any new developments” in my case could mean for me. They could have found the person who attacked me outright, which would be ideal. Or they could have found a suspect, or a witness. Anything, really, other than the nothing we had.

If they found something though, if they solved this, what would things be like? Would I just go back to some other dingy muggle flat again? I had been fine there, alone, but after living here with Harry the prospect of returning seemed unbearably lonely. It was nice to wake up and hear someone else puttering around, and even nicer to see that it was Harry waiting for me, with his wild hair and soft smile.  

Though a very large part of me hoped that they would figure out who did what, another part of me hoped they didn’t. Because as much as I hated this house, I wanted to stay.

I finished my meal and tea and decided that while Harry was away I would do something for myself. I had been very unproductive during my time at Grimmauld Place, and not that I was used to my surroundings, the lack of mental stimulation was starting to grate on me.

I’ve never done well with boredom. I need something to occupy myself with. Maybe I got into the habit so I didn’t think too much and become depressed, as I felt myself on the verge of doing. I felt stagnated. I needed to shake myself out of it.

I had a few library books specifically for when I felt that way. I had been hoping in the very long term to be able to afford to take a few classes at a muggle university, after I got everything I owed paid off. Sophie seemed to like it well, and I had always been good at Muggle Studies, to my father’s immense disappointment. He didn’t know why we needed a class such as that as Hogwarts— he thought muggles were primitive and inferior and did not want to try to expand that thinking any. But the more I learned about them, the more I realized he was wrong.

The Muggle Studies class truly was horrendous. It taught the basics of electricity and muggle social structure in Britain and most of the Western World. It went over the sorts of things muggles would learn in what was roughly the Hogwarts age range. It showed us what sorts of jobs were available to muggles and why these jobs were important. But it wasn’t until I actually lived with them that I realized how incredibly smart they were.

How could primitive beings send a man to the moon? How could inferior peoples figure out how to talk to anyone, anywhere, regardless of distance or proximity to a fireplace? They didn’t need potions to make them sleep or feel better—they’d figured it out on their own. And even though they didn’t have Healers, they somehow were figuring out how to clone living creatures—how to grow new human appendages! And that was just the Western world.

Truly, what muggles had learned about our universe boggled my mind. It was sheer dumb luck and miracles (and probably some heavy doses of obliviation) that kept wizards hidden. But I found this world that I’d been hidden from for so long intensely interesting, especially when it came to science.

It was fascinating, truly. I was at first drawn to the subject because Ryan and I were having a conversation about school, and he mentioned the subject chemistry. I didn’t want to ask him what it was for fear that I would give myself away, so I went to the library later that day and checked out a book on it. It was very much like potions, except instead of simply listing the ingredients and the basics for why they worked together—things like “beeswax: base” or “Eye of newt: accelerant”—it actually went in depth into how the compounds in a mixture were formed at the most absolutely basic level, explaining atomic structures and reactionary elements in diagrams and charts. I thought it was absolutely fascinating. I had never really thought about what anything was really made of before.

The face that everything is composed of either atoms of the tiny space between them blew my mind. The idea that the universe is continually expanding left me in wonder. Einstein’s theory that time and space are one in the same, intrinsically and paradoxically connected, left me unable to think about anything else for hours.

I really, really wanted to take a class at university. It would have to be one of the basics, to be able to study what I really wanted to understand, but I could work my way up. Luckily, I had taken Arithmancy, so I had a fairly good grasp on difficult math. I could follow most of what my book told me if I read and re-read it slowly enough—and took notes. Pens were so much easier than quills, and I couldn’t believe I’d ever been without them.

The book I had that day in particular was about stars. I read through the constellations, of which I knew many—that is one overlap between the Wizarding world and the muggle one, our ancient myths. Even my name is based on a constellation. But then it went into detail why some look brighter than others, how stars in one constellation can be light years away from each other, how many of the stars we look upon are probably already extinct. It explained how a star goes supernova or becomes a black hole. I had settled myself on the couch and was absorbed in learning about the properties of a black hole when I heard a cough and looked up. “Oh!”

Harry was leaning in the doorway, looking comfortable, as though he’d been there for a while. His expression was soft, but his eyes looked dark and intense. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he said. “What is that you’re reading?”

“It’s nothing,” I said, embarrassed. I self-consciously raked my hands quickly through my hair, which I had forgotten to brush that morning, before closing the book and my notepad.

“It doesn’t look like nothing,” he said, walking over and sitting down on the opposite side of the couch.

“It can wait,” I replied. I didn’t feel comfortable telling him that I wanted to study science. Plans so often spiral away from what you think they will become, and this plan in particular was the type of fragile creation I didn’t want to talk about too much or I was afraid it would collapse under the weight of the words. Better to help is grow in secret. “What did Ron have to say?”

“Well…” Harry scratched his head. “I can’t tell you much. I don’t have the authority. But he thinks one of Pansy’s roommates might have been involved, or one of the people she had over for company that week. He’s not sure about the Greengrass sisters or Bulstrode, but he thinks maybe Zabini or Nott could have been involved. He’ll want to talk to you about it again soon.”

I scoffed. “The Greengrass sisters would never,” I told him straight away. “They’re too friendly. They’re the comedic relief whenever it looks like Pansy and I are about to have a spat. They work in an ice cream parlor, for Merlin’s sake.” I considered a little longer, feeling Harry’s watchful gaze prickling the hair on the back of my neck. “Millie is too pathetic. We don’t like each other, but she has no backbone. And she never struck me as very bright.” I paused. “I remember fifth year one of the big rumors in the common room was that she fancied Vin. Fifth year was a particularly stupid year on his part, so she _has_ to be more than a little dumb.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “How did Crabbe take that rumor?”

I shrugged. “He was flattered. He lost what little vocabulary I’d managed to teach him whenever she was around. I think he was shocked a girl actually liked him.”

“Well, he spent all his time around you,” Harry said. “He was used to being the ugly one.”

I gave him an incredulous expression. “It doesn’t do to insult the dead.”

“I’m not insulting him,” Harry said, cleaning his glasses. “Most people would be the ugly one around you. Except for fourth year. You looked especially pointy in fourth year. One would almost say you looked like a—“

“Don’t you dare say it.”

“Like a ferret.”

I stared at him, pursing my lips and contemplating what to say back to that.

“I mean,” he said, half-laughing under my gaze, “you were a good-looking ferret. Definitely the first one to be adopted in the pet store.”

I shoved my pen behind my ear and moved to get up. “I’ll give you the address of the nearest one in case Mad-Eye ever comes after me again.”

“You do know that wasn’t really Mad-Eye right?”

“Yes, Potter,” I sighed. “My father told me. But it’s his glowering face I see bouncing around in my memory, so excuse me for thinking otherwise.” I gathered my book and my notebook under one of my arms.

“Wait, Draco,” Harry said.

“Hm?”

“Do you think either Nott or Zabini could have hurt you?”

I hesitated, chewing my bottom lip. “Theo keeps to himself,” I said. “He’s a nice bloke, unassuming. Pretty smart, but he’d be smarter if he didn’t smoke so much pot.”

“I’m learning all sorts of gossip from you today.”

“I’m a Slytherin,” I said. “Nothing is sacred with us.”

“And Zabini?”

“We’ve not been on the best terms for a while,” I said. “Not since the war ended. I’m not really sure why—I know he was deeply afraid of the Dark Lord, but that’s not unique by any means. He…I don’t know. He never quite made his affiliations clear, whether or not he supported him. I think he is a bit bitter, though, that I appear to have survived the outcome of the war unscathed and un-punished. But,” I added hurriedly, “those are just guesses. He’s difficult to read. He wears a lot of masks.”

Harry nodded. “I have past experience with those sorts of people.” He looked me dead in the eye when he said it, though his lips curled into the vaguest hint of a smile.

“Well,” I muttered, ruffled. “I don’t do that as much now.”

“I know,” he said, his smile widening. “I prefer it this way.”

“Hm,” I responded, trying to force the blood rushing to my cheeks away from my face. “I’ll go put these back upstairs.”

“No, wait.” Harry held out a hand. “Would you mind if…could I see it?”

“The book?” he nodded. “I suppose…”

“Draco,” he said, flipping the pages slowly but haphazardly. “This is dense stuff.”

I shrugged and tugged at my sweater’s sleeves. “I think it’s interesting.”

“Really?” he asked. “It’s muggle. And it’s a lot of math. And calculations. And theory…”

I shrugged again an rubbed my arm. “Do you understand everything in here?” he asked.

“Some of it,” I replied honestly. “What I don’t, though, I write down and try to research until I do.”

“I never knew you liked research.”

I scowled. “I wasn’t second in the class for nothing.”

Harry exhaled a small laugh through his nose. “I didn’t mean to offend you. Come here,” he said, reaching out his hand. He ran it through my hair, thumb running over my ear. “I think it’s brilliant.”

I could feel my face heating up again and started to shrug, but Harry’s face was so close to my own, and he had that mischievous look on his face, and then we were kissing.

He pulled me on top of him so I was sitting in his lap. One strong arm wrapped around me, holding me in place, while the other hand cupped my face gently. He moved to kiss me again but his glasses got in the way so I took them off and placed them on the couch cushion. I kissed the bridge of his nose, right where they had been. He shifted and began kissing down my jaw and neck. I moved my head away to help him and held him close, shivering at the sensation of his lips on me. I gasped when I felt teeth gently nip my earlobe, the sting immediately softened with kisses, a wordless apology. His hand slid under my shirt and rubbed up and down my back, right on my spine, causing me to shudder and press even closer to him. 

“Harry…” I said breathlessly.

His eyes were the darkest green I’d seen. “You’re beautiful,” he told me, pulling me into an open-mouthed kiss. I felt the curl of his tongue sliding against mine, the pull of the kiss as he sucked on my bottom lip.

I moved my hands to hold his face and kissed him fiercely. I kissed him hard, wanting to leave his lips swollen and tingling. I kissed down his face, stubble scratching my cheek, and centered on the sensitive spot right under his jaw. I heard him exhale a shaky breath and felt him knot his fingers in my hair. I could feel him getting excited against me, and I felt just the same.

I felt his hand slide from my back to my stomach. I was so distracted by what was happening that I forgot why I had been so worried in the past, until his fingers hit the edge of my longest, deepest scar, the one that slashed all the way across my torso.

He paused and pulled his face away from mine. “What…?” His hands disappeared when he saw my expression. “Draco.”

“It’s—I’m fine,” I said, recoiling and standing up. “It’s fine.” I took a deep breath and swallowed heavily, walking a little away so my back faced him. “It’s fine.”

 “It’s clearly not,” he said. I could hear the concern in his voice.

I turned back towards him slightly, but my arms crept up to hug my stomach, right over the scar. “No, I—”

“If you’re not comfortable going further, I understand.  You don’t need to explain—it’s okay. I don’t want you to feel like you need to pretend, or—” He paused to shove his glasses back on his nose. “I’m sorry. I obviously did something wrong, I’m sorry. I should have asked.”

He looked so upset with himself, it made me want to cry. It would have been better if he got angry, like when we were kids and picked on each other—then I could just get angry back. “It’s not—you didn’t—I—” I bit my lip, glowering at the floor and trying to figure out how to word what I wanted to say next.

Harry stayed where he sat, looking hopelessly conflicted. I could tell I was confusing him and it made me feel even worse.  I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t make the words come.

“It’s okay if you can’t explain,” he quietly told me, seeing how frustrated I was.

I shook my head. “No, it’s not.”

He scoffed exasperatedly, but I could still see the worry in the lines of his eyes. “Are you really going to fight me on this?”

I chewed my lip and stared at the wall. It made it easier than trying to look at him. I took a deep breath, and—“I have scars from sixth year.”

The words forced their way out as soft, shaky, fledgling things, breathless and rapid. But in the silence they left afterwards they grew to a crushing weight. I felt it in my chest. It took superhuman effort just to inhale.

“Oh.”

The shock in his voice hit me like a punch. I didn’t know what to say. I never learned how to respond to a bad situation except with anger, and the only anger I felt just then was at myself. I knew it wasn’t justified, but the relentless voice in my head didn’t care.

_Why do you always have to ruin everything?_

_You had a good thing going. Not he’s not even going to touch you. He remembers what you did. He thinks you’re disgusting._

_He hates you. He hates you. He hates—_

“Draco, I’m so sorry.”

His voice sounded different than it had that day.

I remember. “No—I didn’t mean—I didn’t know what the spell did!” was shot through with panic and horror like electricity, echoing off walls like an alarm. I could sense it through the haze of pain and redness, a thin thread I grasped for as I began to sink away.

His voice was different.

The broken words that fell out of his mouth were jagged and painful and tore at his throat. I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to see if his expression matched the way he sounded.

“I never meant…” His voice was shaky and he had to swallow before he could continue. “I never realized it would—I’m so sorry, Draco,” he said thickly. “I’m so sorry.”

He never meant. Of course he never meant. He couldn’t _Crucio_ his worst enemy—Bella made sure that was widely known. He killed the Dark Lord with an _Expelliarmus_. The only curse he could ever cast that truly had the ability to do deep harm was the one he cast on me.

I didn’t like the waver in his voice one bit. “Please don’t cry,” I told him, staring at the ceiling and trying to get my own emotions under control.

He laughed, a bit hysterically. I pursed my lips and risked a glance over to him. His face was hidden, thankfully, turned down to the floor with his elbows propped onto his knees and his head in his hands, nails dug into his hair.

I rubbed my face with both hands, taking a deep breath. This would do no good. Standing on opposite ends of the room, not facing each other. We lived together. This wouldn’t do. I didn’t want this to be how we ended.

Decidedly, I walked back over to him, still apprehensive. He didn’t move, but I could tell by the stiffness with which he held himself that he was waiting for me to walk by him. I put my hand on his shoulder and heard a surprised little gasp.

I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t speak. I pulled him into me and I held him, pressing my cheek into the top of his head like Mum used to do when I was small and upset.

Slowly, his arms wrapped around me and he held me tightly. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his face buried in my neck, his fingers clutching my shirt. I felt hot tears slide against my skin.

“Shhh, love,” I said, working my fingers through his hair. I felt him sob and held him through it, rubbing circles on his back and making whatever small sounds of comfort I could think of.

The way he cried was familiar to me. The kind of crying that wants to be loud but isn’t. It’s stifled and muffled and silent and makes you feel broken and pathetic because you want someone, anyone to hear you and see you and care for you but they won’t, they can’t, because vulnerability is something that scares them or something to be used, not something to be comforted. It’s the learned kind of crying. The taught sort of sadness that sticks in your chest and festers because it’s too difficult to let it out the way you want to. The way he cried made me think he wasn’t just crying for me—that I was just that final straw that broke the dam he had made inside him and everything he withheld came surging upwards.

I wondered if he’d ever let himself cry in front of anyone, like I hadn’t. He was ever the only person who saw me cry. What a sad and strange sort of symmetry.

It hurt me.

It hurt a lot.

I thought, of all of us, he would be freer. But I was wrong.

 

“Merlin,” Harry muttered eventually, releasing me and moving away so he could rub his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Fuck. You shouldn’t have to comfort me.”

I hummed but didn’t say anything, studying him quietly. “Do you feel better?”

He ran his hands through his hair and shook it out like a dog. His glasses had left an indent on the side of his face, and he looked pale and exhausted, but at least he had stopped crying. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Stop apologizing,” I told him, pushing a stray lock of his back into place.

He smiled weakly. “Alright.”

His eyes were an even more intense green for the red that was shot through them, and when he fixed me with a stare, I felt paralyzed. “You’re not…angry?”

I blinked. “For what?”

“The scars,” he said as though it should be obvious. “The curse. Everything.”

My teeth worried my bottom lip and I shrugged. “You thought I was up to something and I was. If anything, you saved my life doing that. It convinced the Dark Lord that we were brutal enemies. He never suspected I had doubts.”

“Oh. But…”

“And we were in the middle of a fight, and you never think, and you didn’t know what the curse did when you cast it.”

“It’s still my fault, though.” He stared at his knees when he said it.

I nodded. “Yes, it was. Yours and the situation’s. But it was a long time ago, Harry,” I told him. “I forgave you a long time ago.”

“Really?’

I nodded.

Harry laughed. “I didn’t know Malfoys could be forgiving.”

I smiled, but it had steel in it. “I’m a Malfoy, but I’m also my own person. Which is something I’ve worked very hard to become.”

He nodded. “Well…” he sighed. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“For forgiving me. And for telling me. You didn’t want to, did you?”

I shook my head.  “I was worried…”

“That I’d cry?” he grinned ruefully.

“No,” I laughed. “Well, yes. But also that you’d…that you wouldn’t want to be with me.”

“Oh,” he said, brow furrowed, suddenly serious again. His grin disappeared like the sun covered by clouds. “Why would you think that?”

I shrugged. “It was stupid.”

“Obviously not,” he scoffed. “You’re one of the smartest people I know.”

That tugged my lips into a smile. “I know.” I ran my fingers under the fabric of my sleeve, stroking the Mark on my forearm nervously.

Harry noticed. “Hey,” he said gently, taking my hand and holding it between both of his. His eyes searched my face intently. “Is that why you thought so? Voldemort?”

I hated when he said his name. It still made me flinch.

It was a lot of things. The Dark Lord, yes. But also Harry himself. I was afraid that he wouldn’t want to be with me once he learned that I bore the reminders of that fight. I was afraid it would make him too guilty. I was afraid that he would be too unbearably good to stand me. But I had been thinking like a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor. Of course he would stay. He had that stubborn streak of masochistic bravery in him.

“That was a long time ago, Draco.” His thumb rubbed the back of my hand slowly. I nodded.

He leaned in and kissed me on the lips softly, not even a little hesitation. “Alright?”

I swallowed and replied hoarsely, “Alright.”

He grinned and leaned back into the couch, one arm slung around my shoulders. “Good.”

I curled into him, and for a long while, we didn’t say anything.

“Hey.” Harry’s scratchy voice eventually broke the silence. “Tell me about outer space.”

I smiled. Curled up next to him, my head on his shoulder and his face in my hair, Harry let me talk about what I’d been studying. Talking brought my mind away from the dark place it had been and relaxed me. I found myself yawning increasingly in between sentences, and then found I could no longer finish them. I’m not sure when exactly I fell asleep, but it was deep and murky and restful.

 

                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Harry gently shook me awake. I was lying on the couch, a pillow under my head and a blanket over me.

I shoved a hand through my hair and blinked up at him blearily. “How long was I asleep?”

“About an hour,” Harry said. “Sorry to interrupt. But Ron wants to talk to you again.”

“No, it’s okay,” I said, pushing the blanket off. “If I sleep too much now I’ll stay awake all night.”

“Do you want a snack before we go?”

I paused. “Where are we going?”

“Back to the Ministry,” he explained. “It’s protocol. We breeched it for you before because your circumstances were different than most, but now that we have more of an idea about your case and your safety has been ensured, he has to talk to you there.”

I bit my lip and scowled. “Interrogate me, you mean.” I took a deep breath.

“I’ll be right next to you,” he said reassuringly. “You’ll be alright. Nothing is going to happen to you.”

I hummed, unconvinced. Eventually, though, I relented. “If I must.”

Harry’s eyes swept over my face. “I think you should eat something before we leave.”

My stomach was completely twisted in knots. I clenched my jaw and gripped my wand in my pocket. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Let’s just get this over with.”

 

“There’s a lot of movement on the continent,” Weasley said. I was amazed at how professional he was. Formal, polite, and to the point. I didn’t know he had the capacity to be that precise. “There are some people who think You Know Who had the right idea. Crazy, obviously, but dangerous. They don’t like the amount of displaced people sweeping through their territory. They don’t like that the Ministry is making headway on giving Magical Creatures more rights because they’re afraid their own governments will do so. Purebloods on the continent have the same sort of standards, and they weren’t here. From far away, some people with obviously impaired empathy seemed to think he had the right idea.”

“But that’s ridiculous,” I said.

Ron shrugged. “He was insane, but he was powerful. When Harry killed him and the Aurors imprisoned all the Death Eaters they could find, it left a vacuum. Spots open for someone else to step in. And from a distance, it’s easy to point out where someone else went wrong. It’s easy to get arrogant and try to do something better.”

I nodded, thinking hard. I remember talking to Ryan and Sophie about that sort of thing with Muggle politics. It always ended up bloodier than they intended, and the last thing I wanted was to be sucked into another conflict.

“We don’t know who is leading the group,” Ron sighed. “They seem to use a double-blind system. The fresher recruits only know their immediate commander. That commander only knows their commander. And on and on. The only thing that seems to run through as a commonality is their extremism.”

“And you’re telling me this because you think one of those people attacked me,” I said, following along.

Harry pursed his lips and cracked his knuckles. He always fidgeted when he was angry at school, a habit he’d apparently kept on.

“We’re fairly sure, yes,” Ron said. “But we can’t say anything for certain.”

“I understand why they wouldn’t go after me,” Harry said. “Considering everything, even though I’d be a high-profile target. But why go after Draco?”

“Because I’m a traitor,” I said before Ron could answer. “If I hadn’t given you my wand, you might not have been able to defend yourself, and the Dark Lord might have won. Everyone at Hogwatrs saw me do it. And, because of your testimony at my trial, everyone else found out too.”

Ron nodded slowly. “He’s right.” Harry’s jaw clenched.

“Who did you find connected to this organization?” I asked him. “It was on the Continent, so it was either Blaise or Theo.”

Ron sighed. “We’re interrogating both of them right now,” he said. “More Aurors were brought onto the case immediately after we realized your attack could be connected to a larger organization. So far, we’re fairly certain that Zabini is connected, it’s just a matter of finding out how. We’re not sure about Nott.”

Harry was shaking. “You didn’t tell me about this earlier,” he said.

Ron gave him a sympathetic look. “I know, mate. I swore an oath. I’m sorry.”

Harry sighed. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have let him go back to Pansy’s flat.”

“They were gone by then,” I said sharply. I would have figured out a way to Pansy’s flat whether or not he wanted me to go, anyway. “Blaise doesn’t think Volemort was right by any means,” I told Ron. “He doesn’t like me, certainly, but he wouldn’t support an organization that goes around waving the Mark in the sky. I think he might be coerced or bribed. In Hogwarts he always had a price tag. And a penchant for passing the blame.”

Ron nodded. “And what about Nott?”

I took a deep breath, trying to keep the full impact of the situation at bay. “Theo was always very smart. He’s quiet, and I wouldn’t have thought he would get involved with something like this—but Blaise is his best friend, so he could have convinced him, or members of his family, maybe. It’s happened before with Muggles.”

Ron’s eyebrows rose to try to meet his hairline. “You know about muggle world affairs?”

I scowled. “I only lived with them for three years,” I said snarkily.  “A lot of different places are having all sorts of trouble with extremism. I’ve been keeping watch on France especially because my mother lives there. I try not to be entirely ignorant,” I sniffed.

“Hm.” One eyebrow lowered. “Well, that’s new.”

I crossed my arms and stared him down. If he was going to be difficult, I could be too.

“Anyway,” he said, “We’re going to have to take additional safety measures when you’re in public. You and Harry together make quite an attractive target for these people. We’re not sure how many of them are in London.” He reached into a briefcase, his whole arm disappearing, and his hand re-emerged with a small leather bag. “This has enough to last you about forty-eight straight hours, but you were best in the class at potions, so I know I don’t have to tell you to take it all at once.”

I held out my hand and took it, peering inside. “Polyjuice? I thought that was restricted.”

“It is,” he said. “But you’re a target, and you’re under the Ministry’s protection.”

“Isn’t there something less invasive that we could do instead?”

“There are currently no known substitutes for Polyjuice,” Ron said. “So unless you’re willing to take your lead from Teddy, if you go out in public, you’ll have to take it.”

“Certainly muggle public should be safe.”

Ron and Harry exchanged a glance. “I’d like to say so,” Ron said slowly. “But until we have more information we would rather you use it whenever you leave the safe house, just to be sure.”

“Who will it make me look like?” I asked warily.

“To avoid potential confusion or disruption, we based it off of a Muggle living in Sussex,” he explained.

I huffed. “I hope he was good looking.”

“I’m glad that’s your primary concern.”

I didn’t have much of a comeback to that, so I simply glared at him tiredly.

“Do we know how large this organization is?” Harry asked Ron, the seriousness in his voice bringing me back to where we were.

Ron rubbed at his eyes tiredly, the whites bloodshot around blue. “I dunno. This is international, and because there aren’t any current restrictions on travel we don’t have a good number. We don’t have much to go for as a profile, except to re-examine all the pureblood families and try to see who may have had a stronger connection with You Know Who on the continent than others like we did after the war when we were trying to flush out Death Eaters and those who were potentially harboring them. I’d say it can’t be large, but then, I don’t know for sure how many pureblood families there even are on the continent. I’m not the statistics guy.”

“Thank Merlin for that,” Harry said, and they laughed together.

“Just seeing their record keeping makes me feel ill,” he said.

“There is a reason Hermione was the only one of us to ever attempt Arithmancy.”

“She tried to explain it to me once,” Ron said, cocking his head. “I told her I’d heard George calling me before she could finish two sentences.”

“Smart, that.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know when she you both are free next? It’s been too long since we’ve all spent time together.”

“She’s working really hard about getting that bill through on Erumpets passed, so I’m not sure. She’s gotten home past midnight every day this week. Mum is worth all our weight in solid gold, Rosie adores her.”

“I bet,” Harry said.

“You’re coming to Bill’s birthday party though, aren’t you?” Ron asked. “Mum will pitch an absolute fit if you aren’t.”

“I most definitely am,” Harry laughed. “Does he want anything in particular?”

“Maybe some more fanged earrings,” Ron said. “Just so long as you don’t show them to my parents.”

“Gotcha,” Harry grinned. It was interesting seeing him around the Weasel when they weren’t trying to fight me. They had an easy friendship that I envied—Pansy and I had only become so tight-knit out of survival in sixth year, and my friendship with Greg completely dissolved under the strain of Vin’s death. Nothing was the same. I wish I could say I had been there for him, but I was caught up in my own grief and I hadn’t been. I had no real friendships to show from my first five years at Hogwarts.

I realized Harry was standing. “It was good to see you again,” he said, giving Ron a hug. “Even if it was for work.”

“It was good to see you too, mate,” he replied. “We’ll make time soon.”

They parted and Ron stuck out his hand. “Malfoy,” he said civilly. I shook it. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” I muttered. “Weasley.”

The façade of Grimmauld Place had never seemed so inviting. I needed to shut myself away in my room, curl up with Etty, and think about everything I’d learned until my head didn’t feel like it was spinning anymore.

Harry noticed. “I’m going to make myself something to eat. I’ll make extra for you and put a warming charm on it. You can eat when you’re ready,” he told me. I nodded gratefully and walked up the stairs.

 

                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

A whole organization. Not just one hateful person. My attack could have been premeditated by a whole damn organization of people.

How did they know the spell for the Mark? How had they gotten Blaise involved? I hoped it was just bribery. Nobody deserved to be threatened into supporting a cause the way that I had.

I hoped Theo wasn’t involved. I’d thought he was a good person. But this realization was making me call into question everything I thought I knew about my former classmates.

I held up a vial of Polyjuice and lifted my lit wand up to it. It looked thick and viscous and lumpy and like something you’d be more likely to pour under the hood of a car or in an incinerator than in your mouth. I shuddered, disgusted, but understood I did need something to alter my appearance. It was obvious that I was a target—that I’d known for three years. But being near me made Harry an even bigger target too, and it had already been written in the _Prophet_ that Harry and I had been together outside of Florean’s. Better to make it look like we just happened upon each other than to continue going around blatantly, even if now we would be under scrutiny.

I stroked Etty’s ears and tried not to think about anything. There were too many thoughts swirling around in my mind—they were crashing into each other and becoming unintelligible. I needed to relax.

I thought about turning my phone on for the first time in weeks. I was afraid to. I didn’t want to get the barrage of text messages from Luna and Sophie and Ryan asking me where I was or what happened. And even worse would be if I got nothing at all. So I left it there to sit, even though it had this meditation app I used to use a lot when I couldn’t sleep to calm my thoughts.

I sighed and decided to do nothing instead. I was never very good at doing nothing, but right then, it seemed about the only thing I could do. That is, until my stomach started growling loudly.

I put on a second sweater and padded down the stairs with Etty hovering around my ankles. She knows whenever I get hungry I give her scraps, the beggar.

Harry was in the kitchen, all different copies of the _Prophet_ and the _Times_ and more obscure newspapers I hadn’t heard of strewn over the counters. He looked up from his reading when I entered and smiled.

“I hope you like roast beef,” he said. “It was about the only thing left in the fridge.”

“That’s fine, thank you,” I said. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m trying to see if anything else similar to your attack has been reported on, or if there are any particular places that have been experiencing a lot of violence against half-bloods and muggle-borns.” I noticed that almost all the papers had _World Affairs_ written in big print at the top.

“Why?” I asked.

Harry sighed. “I wanted the war to be over once it ended,” he said. “But everyone thought the fighting was over when the First Wizarding War happened, and then a second one came. I mean, this situation is different because we know, for a fact, that Voldemort isn’t coming back. But that doesn’t stop the ideology he created from spreading.”

I nodded.

“You should eat,” he said. “You don’t seem to eat when you’re stressed.”

I speared a piece of roast with my fork and waved it at him. “I’m eating, Harry.”  
“Sorry if I’m being overbearing,” Harry said. “I prefer when I’m under pressure for people not to hover, but when I worry about people I tend to do it to them. It only really started up after everything, I’m not sure… It annoyed Ginny too.”

“It’s alright,” I said, swallowing a mouthful. “If you didn’t hover, the only one who would is Etty. And that’s because she just wants food.” I proved my point by looking down at her and holding a piece of beef over her head. She followed it with her eyes, her stare unwavering. Tossing it over to her, I turned back to Harry as she scrambled to catch it. “She’s fleeting and fickle. Not exactly dependable material.”

Harry laughed. “I suppose not.”

I finished the rest of my meal quickly and silently. I was curious to see what Harry was finding, and see if I could find anything myself, but the thought of researching the subject made me feel queasy. “Good night,” I told him, levitating my plates to the sink.

“Good night,” he said, his eyes never leaving the page.

Before I turned into my bedroom, I stopped at the Black’s library. It took me a while to find what I was searching for, but find it I did. A huge volume listing a great deal of restricted potions, and there was a huge chapter of over two hundred pages specifically on Polyjuice. I would be damned if I had to take someone else’s face to go out in public.

My skills with Glamour were passable at best, but the spells themselves were weak and quickly faded. My strength was in potions. And I was going to figure out some way to get around this question of Polyjuice.

 


	16. Win

 

I had written out every ingredient the proof listed for Polyjuice and wrote next to it what it did in whole, what other elements it reacted with, and why it was in the potion specifically. Then I organized all the materials by characteristic, between potentially alkaline elements, acidic elements, and catalysts.

After this was done, I tried to figure out which ingredients were the most volatile. I wanted my potion to work purely on the surface—denser than a glamour, longer-lasting and more impacted, but not as invasive as the only potion substitute currently in existence.

It was a big job, I knew. But I was fairly sure others had figured it out before me—I couldn’t have been the only person with this idea, especially considering the amount of espionage every intelligence agency has—and it was that which spurred me to keep going. Even if I didn’t know who, if someone else had figured it out that meant it was possible, and that meant I could too.

I needed a strong base, stronger than what Polyjuice had originally. Knotgrass and flexweed were both well and good but they were very flexible substances. I needed something more unyielding. I thought maybe beeswax would be a good agent to use, or perhaps some sort of tree bark because they both act as repellants. Stubborn root would also work too, as it was in their nature to be stubborn, so I wrote numerous different ideas down.

Besides the lack of a strong, anchoring base, I thought the other element which made Polyjuice potion so virulent was the leeches. I needed something to temper them, if not outright replace them. I marked this in the margins. Leeches relentlessly consume that of another, which by nature changes them internally. I needed that essence of another being, another look, but I needed it to be a façade. I thought maybe claw of chameleon would work as a substitute, but because of their understandable difficulty to capture, that would be a very tricky ingredient to obtain.  Regrettably, the boomslang skin was what I believed to give the potion its unfortunate texture—that and the lacewing flies, both of which I sadly did not think I could replace. However, I believed that instead of simply obtaining samples of DNA from one person, I would have to diversify. If I wanted to retain some elements of myself, I believed I would have to put my own DNA into the potion as well as someone else’s. However, due to the varying strength of whatever base element I decided to use, I would have to be selective about what I used to represent myself. I worried that if I used a hair, as most Polyjuice potions were made, it would retain my natural color despite what other look I wanted to achieve. But then, I thought, my hair was so fair I could easily send Harry to get a bottle of dye from a muggle shop and have at it.

I stayed up until the early hours of the morning taking notes and jotting ideas down, finally writing a potential draft of a proof for a new potion as threads of sunlight spread from behind my curtain. I fell asleep in my bed with papers spread around me, ink staining my fingers and reading glasses askew on my face.

Harry woke me up many hours later with a knock on my door, wafting the smell of bacon and tea into the room. I blearily raised my head and peeled a page that had gotten stuck off of my cheek.

“Good morning,” he said cheerily. I dropped my glasses onto the bed and rubbed my face with my hands, making incoherent mumblings meant to be a similar greeting.  

“I made you breakfast,” he said, setting the tray on the blanket next to me. I squinted at it, my eyes still adjusting, and then looked up at him.

“What time is it?” I asked him.

“Nearly noon,” he replied. “I was making myself lunch.”

“You didn’t have to go out of your way to make me breakfast.”

He shrugged. “I’ll eat breakfast for any meal.” Gingerly, he cleared a spot to sit among the papers, picking a few up to move out of his way and look through. “What are these?”

“Potions proofs,” I yawned, covering my mouth. “I don’t like the idea of using Polyjuice every time I want to step outside. It sounds very painful.”

“It is,” Harry agreed.

I squinted at him. “How do you know?”

“I, ah, took some second year,” he grinned sheepishly. “To get into your common room.”

“What!” He laughed at my surprise. “Why?”

“To see if you were the heir of Slytherin.”

I considered that. “I’m flattered,” I decided. “Though whoever it was seemed a bit too gory for my standards.”

“Well, it _was_ Tom Riddle,” Harry said.

“Who?”

He blinked. “Voldemort. His horcrux. It was the heir of Slytherin.”

“Have you had enough sleep, Harry?” I asked. “Is that potion I gave you alright, or is it addling your dreams?”

“No, see,” Harry said, and proceeded to explain the long and varied story.

Gooseflesh ran up my arms when he told me about Ginny. “That poor girl.” I shuddered. The Dark Lord had put me under the Imperious Curse a fair few times—he thought it was funny because I was the youngest to torment me. He said it was supposed to be a test, because my family were such devoted followers. He said I should have accepted him completely and enthusiastically. It made my skin crawl to remember him probing my mind, searching for weakness, calculating yet as predatory and unpredictable as a rabid animal. He made me question every hateful thought, making me wonder if it was myself who thought it or he who planted it there. I hated not having control. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to be completely under his influence as a first year, utterly vulnerable and alone. My mouth became so dry I couldn’t speak, so I just shook my head.

To think I had envied that at one point, that that sort of focused attention from such a fanatic I considered the pinnacle of success. Of course, I only thought so because my real goal was making Father proud, and that was the only way to do it. In the thick of it, he truly believed he was doing what was best for the family. He thought we would win, and then everything we had suffered would be justified. But I just lost and lost and lost some more, and I felt like I could never commit to either side because I didn’t know how to believe in anything greater than myself.

“Draco?” Harry asked, a gentle hand lightly on my shoulder. “Are you alright?”

I blinked. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“I thought I lost you there for a moment,” he said, still a flicker of concern in his eyes.

“I’m okay.” I took a sip of tea so I wouldn’t have to speak while I composed myself again. “So tell me,” I said, grinning slowly. “Who did you become?”

“Goyle,” Harry laughed, scratching his head. “Ron became Crabbe.”

“You’re kidding,” I said incredulously.

“Nope,” he smiled. “We drugged them, hid them away, stole a few hairs. I forgot to take off my specs though.”

I remembered suddenly what he was talking about quite vividly. “ ‘I didn’t know you could read’,” I quoted myself. I burst out laughing. “You’re so ridiculous! I can’t believe you did that!”

Harry shrugged, his face reddening.

“And I can’t believe two Gryffindors would do something as devious as drug someone.”

“Actually,” Harry started, but cut himself off. I raised my eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.

“It’s nothing,” he said decidedly. “Eat breakfast. When you’re done we can go over your new file.”

I scowled, but it held no real ire. “Don’t tell me what to do, Potter.”

“Fine,” he said, eyebrows raised. “What would you like to do?”

“Eat my breakfast,” I replied. And then we’ll go over the file. But it was all on my own accord.”

“Naturally,” Harry smiled.

“Also, what file are we going over?”

“Ron gave it to me when you were zoning out yesterday,” Harry explained. “Really, are you feeling alright? You’ve been out of it quite a lot recently.”

“I’m fine,” I said impatiently, swatting the hand he’d reached out to touch my forehead away. “I’ve a lot on my mind is all. Everything seems to be dredging up memories from the war I’d rather not deal with. What’s the file about?”

“The identity you’re going to be assuming,” he said.

“Well, hopefully, I won’t be assuming it for very long,” I muttered. “I’m going to figure out the brew for this other potion, and it’s going to be much better.”

“In the meantime,” Harry continued steadily, “I think you’ll want to go outside sometime between now and when you make a groundbreaking new discovery. So we’ll go over your cover story so you know what to say if we get mauled by reporters again.”

I shrugged a shoulder. “If you insist,” I relented, turning back to my food.

 

 

It just wasn’t enough for the Ministry to put me on semi-house arrest with a constant guard. They also had to make it miserable for me whenever I was allowed to leave, too. Harry tried to defend them against my indignant mutterings, but I just waved him off.  This was a new form of torture.

Winston Fahey was the deplorable name for the persona I would be forced to role-play whenever I wanted to leave this house. He had dirty blonde hair that could have been wavy but simply looked limp. He was roughly my height and weight, which they had attempted to keep relatively similar so I wouldn’t have to go around in Winston’s body completely un-suspiciously buying a whole new wardrobe as I ran around in whatever ill-fitting garb I had as my own self. His eyes were a dull shade of brown and he had freckles all over his face and down his arms. His jaw was slightly crooked, as were his teeth. You could see it in his smile.

“Do you think you might be a bit harsh on him?” Harry asked me as I said all this aloud.

“Certainly not,” I scoffed. “I’m supposed to be him.”

“I don’t think he’s all that bad looking,” Harry said, studying the moving photo again.

“But he’s not _me_ ,” I pouted, hugging my knees to my chest. I knew I was acting bratty but I couldn’t help it. I thought the whole situation was unfair, even though I knew it was for my safety. I could tolerate that excuse to live in the safe house and be with a bodyguard. But it made my skin crawl to think about walking around as someone so entirely other than myself. At least with the potion I was trying to make, I could retain a little bit of myself to seek out, if I wanted. The shape of my nose, the arch of my eyebrows, the bow of my lips. I saw nothing of myself in his face.

“His nose is plastered to one side,” I sulked. “I bet it was broken.”

 Harry sighed. “I think they tried to find someone who looked enough like you to make you feel comfortable, while making you different enough that nobody could make the correlation.”

“He doesn’t look a thing like me.”

“You’re both blonde,” Harry said.

I drawled, “How observant.”

“I mean, they’re different shades of blonde, naturally,” he continued. “And I do think yours is much better, but at least this way it won’t look as completely foreign to you as it would to see someone with a much darker coloring than your own in the mirror. That way, if you catch sight of yourself in public, it’ll be easier to hide any shock you might have.”

“I have beautiful hair.” I sighed through my nose. “It’ll still be difficult.”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But not as difficult as it could have been.”

“What’s his back story?” I asked Harry, propping my chin on my knees.

“Well, the real man—whose name is classified—is muggle. But Winston’s history is that he’s a half-blood who just graduated from Hogwarts a year and a half ago. He has family in Edinburgh, a mother and a father, an aunt and two cousins. The file is sparse because we thought it best to leave most aspects of his likes and dislikes up to you. You don’t have to change anything really about your own personality if you don’t want to. Though maybe avoid talking about the Dark Arts, if the inclination ever arises.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I mumbled miserably.

Harry wrapped an arm around my shoulders but didn’t say anything. I knew what he was doing, copying my own tactic, waiting for me to fill the silence.

“It’s not _me_ ,” I gloomily stated the obvious. “I’ve finally become somewhat my own person and I can’t even be me.”

He rubbed my shoulder. “I know,” he said. “On the bright side, though, we can actually go on dates now.”

“What?”

“Well,” he said, “when you look like yourself, we have to keep as low a profile as we can in public—which admittedly isn’t very low, which is why we’ve avoided going to many crowded places—”

“ _Any_ crowded places besides Diagon, and that was hellish.”

“—And now we _want_ the papers to spin those ridiculous stories, because the more they write about me and you as Winston, the more the story of me and you at Diagon will be lost and that means the less chance we have of someone nefarious sneaking around looking for you with me.”

“Don’t call him Winston,” I said. “I hate that name.”

“That’s his name.”

“Win is better,” I said. “Even if the irony isn’t lost on me.”

Harry grinned. “Whatever you say.”

“I expect you to buy me ice cream again,” I muttered.

“I’ll buy you whatever you want,” he said, kissing the side of my face.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have said that.”

We went over the details of Win’s life a bit more. Harry mentioned maybe saying that he was in muggle University—that’s certainly something the Draco Malfoy of my reputation would have never considered, and it would explain my knowledge of science. I pursed my lips and nodded, feeling bitter that I couldn’t actually go. We talked over how we supposedly met—we agreed it could be something as simple as Harry frequented muggle cafes and restaurants to get away from the paparazzi and I happened to work at one of them to pay my way through school. I certainly had enough stories from the restaurant to make that believable.

I asked Harry how many people knew about my real identity. “Ron,” he said. “His boss. Kingsley Shacklebolt. Not many other people at the ministry. But Hermione knows, too.”

“Not because she has clearance, though.”

“No, not because of that,” Harry smiled. “Just because Ron can’t keep anything secret from her.”

After we’d finally talked through everything we could think of, Harry mentioned he’d been invited to a fundraiser. “Hermione is leading it,” he said. “It’s to raise awareness of the current laws restricting magical creatures to own their own property, I think. She would very much like me to attend. It’s not for a few days, and you certainly don’t have to go if you don’t want to, but I was thinking it would be a good way for you and me to get some attention. That’s only if you think you would be up for it, though. There will be a lot of people there.”

I considered, plucking invisible threads from my shirt. “I’d rather start a bit smaller.”

 “What about a dinner out?” Harry asked. “I know a place off of Chatham’s Close I think you might like. Or if you want to avoid the wizarding world, we could always get that falafel.”

“They know me in the falafel place,” I said. “I’d rather go as myself. I can usually convince them to throw in something for free.”

“So Chatham’s Close?” He sounded eager.

“Are you actually excited?” I asked him, skeptical.

“We haven’t gone on a real date since you got here,” he said, looking at me imploringly. “And even though everyone else will think you’re someone else, we’ll both know the truth. It’ll be fun, Draco—I promise.”

“Alright,” I sighed, looking glumly at Win’s crooked, smiling face. “Chatham’s Close it is.”

 

                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I glared at my mirror and tugged on the stupid dirty blonde hair I saw there. I pulled at a curl near my temple and it sprung right back into place. None of my makeup was the right shade, and Win had all sorts of blotches I needed to cover up. There was a stray hair on his left eyebrow that was really irking my, but no matter how many times I tried to put it in place it just kept sticking out.

“Draco?” Harry called from down the stairs. “The reservations were for seven.”

“I know!” I called back, throwing on my robes. It was probably for the better that even the best wizarding garments I owned were hopelessly outdated—I doubted Win could afford anything new. Not that I was wearing my Sunday best, not exactly—that would have to wait for the fundraiser, if we got there.

His face shifted with surprise when I walked around the corner and started down the steps, but once I reached the bottom his expression had shifted back into something more neutral.

“It’s alright,” I said, tugging at that one dumb curl that kept falling into my vision. “You don’t need to hide your horror. I’ve finally entered the state of the truly hideous.”

Harry laughed. “I’m glad you’ve kept up your penchant for dramatics,” he said, gently pushing my hand away and tucking the lock of hair to the side. “I think you look handsome.”

I stared at him. “Not nearly as handsome as I usually look, I should hope.”

“Definitely not,” he grinned.

“Naturally,” I smirked. I don’t particularly know why Harry seemed to enjoy me acting like an arrogant prick or being whiny and theatrical, especially because I knew they weren’t particularly flattering characteristics, but I was glad of it. Time could only change so much of my personality. “You’re alright I guess.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Just alright?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “I guess.” It took effort to suppress the smile that tugged at my lips. He noticed. Like he noticed everything. “For a Gryffindor.”

He kissed my cheek, very close to my lips. “I’ll have to be more convincing, then,” he said, taking my hand. “Let’s go,” he said, leading me through the door. “They’ve already been waiting for fifteen minutes.”

“As if it matters,” I said, letting him walk me out. “They’ll seat people on the floor if it means they can give you a table.”

“Maybe,” he acquiesced, and then I felt the twist of apparition under my ribcage.

 

“Two for Harry, please,” Harry said, walking up to the host.

I looked around the spacious restaurant. It was certainly much nicer than the one I’d worked in. Red carpeting and heavy curtains, elegant hanging lights illuminating tables and candles for each booth, made of mahogany and cushioned with a velvety material. It was very private. Very romantic.

I wondered if the kitchens were cleaner than what I was used to. I hoped so.

My teeth worried at my bottom lip, remembering how common this casual sort of elegance used to be for me and yet how very distinctly out of place I felt. My tongue brushed against Win’s crooked teeth in my mouth and I scrunched my nose in distaste.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we’ve already given your—oh!” the host exclaimed, his face going very pale, looking up from his list and realizing who he was talking to. “Oh! I’ll, er—right this way, Mr. Potter. Excuse me.”

Harry and I followed him to a booth towards the back of the restaurant. Now not only did I feel out of place, I also felt the watchful eyes of every single person in that room bore into Harry and, by default, me.

We sat down and the host quickly stuttered a few parting words and left, nearly crashing into a table on his way away. “Is it always like this?” I asked quietly, leaning in and trying to surreptitiously look around at the people still staring. I could hear whispers starting.

“Hang on a moment,” Harry said, pulling his wand out from his robes and casting a _Muffliato_. “There,” he smiled. “Now we can talk about anything we’d like.”

“They’re like vultures,” I said, very much put off.

 “No,” Harry replied. “Usually they’re worse. No need to insult a poor bird.”

I laughed. I couldn’t believe I’d thought not so long ago that I wanted this sort of attention.

I felt his hand press into the one I had on the table. “Is this place alright? Or would you like to go somewhere else?”

“No, this is fine,” I said, skimming the menu. “It all looks delicious.”

“Good.” His thumb traced over my knuckles lightly. I stared at our hands. “Are you sure?”

“No, I am. I—you need to be seen with Win, I know.”

“I _want_ to be seen with _you_ ,” he said firmly, lacing our fingers and staring at me intensely. “But I need you to be safe, and that’s more important. If you don’t want to do this, all you need to do is say so, and we can go back to the house—I don’t mind.”

“It’s all right,” I sighed. “I might as well get acclimatized now.” I looked down to scan the menu, but kept our fingers intertwined. A server came to get our drink orders, a very nervous young man who seemed in danger of sweating through his shirt. Harry gave him a kind smile after he ordered and the poor man looked like he was about to faint.

“The media can’t get in here,” I observed. “So I’m guessing one of the patrons around us will be taking pictures and selling them to the highest bidder?”

“Oh, more than one,” Harry assured me. “I have this issue way too much. I just wish I could still fit everyone under the invisibility cloak comfortably.”

I blinked. “Invisibility cloak?” I asked, thinking I’d misheard him.

“Oh, yeah. It was my dad’s, and he gave it to me—”

“ _The_ invisibility cloak? But that’s just a myth.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “I thought wizards were just a myth until I turned eleven.”

I couldn’t seem to shut my mouth until the server came back with our drinks. Though I hadn’t noticed the nametag he was wearing, Harry did. “Thank you, Sean,” he said to him, causing him to almost spill our drinks. Catastrophe was narrowly avoided with a well-timed flick of Harry’s wrist, reaching out quickly and grabbing them to make it seem as though he may not have just used wandless magic. _That_ would make a much bigger story than we were bargaining for.

“Nice reflexes,” I muttered when Sean hurried away looking quite shocked. Harry grinned at me triumphantly, and I couldn’t help but smile back. His happiness was infectious. I felt an unpleasant prickle on the back of my neck, and felt with complete certainty that a photo of us from that exact moment would soon be circulating in the paper.

The rest of dinner was fairly uneventful. Harry got the veal, which went absolutely terribly with the white win he had ordered and I made sure to educate him on why once our waitress left (the replacement of, yet no less awkward than, clumsy Sean). I ordered the roast duck, because it was one of my favorite indulgences from my old life and I hadn’t eaten anything like it in a very long time. The food was delicious, as predicted, and eventually the stares dissipated into mild, futile glances.

Harry made sure to personally tip both our servers a generous amount as we left. Just before we exited, secluded in the alcove between the wall and the door, he stopped abruptly and pulled me into him.

“Reporters are probably out there,” he said in my ear his breath sending a shiver down my spine. “The other people there have had more than enough time to send a lead. What do you say we give them a story?”

Mouth dry, I nodded. He grinned, his forehead pressed to mine, and reached behind him for the doorknob. He kissed me as he opened it like I knew he would, and I saw the white flash of cameras even from behind my eyelids.

“Run,” he whispered urgently, and together we pushed through the crowd and the claxon until we were the necessary five meters away from the building’s façade to apparate back home.

“Well,” Harry breathed, exhaling in bursts, “I believe that was an appropriately dramatic ending.”

I wrapped my arm around his shoulder as we began to walk and he wrapped an arm around my waist. “It was lovely. Even if I was hideous.” I was fishing for compliments, I knew, but I felt like I fully deserved them. I didn’t like having to wear Win’s face. It make me uncomfortable and self-conscious and every time I remembered that was the face Harry saw instead of my own I cringed. I’ve always been a little jealous—I never thought I’d be jealous of myself, though.

Harry looked up at me, his green eyes warm. “You’re lovely,” he said sweetly. “You always are.” He leaned in to kiss me again but I leaned back, maneuvering out of his arms and stepping down the sidewalk.

“Nuh-uh,” I chided him, walking backwards so I could see his face. “Not until I’m myself again. I refuse to kiss you with this face unless there’s a reporter present.”

His eyebrows raised and I could tell he was about to say something snarky. “But if you say what you’re thinking right now I swear I won’t kiss you at all.”

His mouth shut so fast I could practically hear it and it made me laugh.

“I love your laugh,” he said as we walked. “Luna told me she could tell who you’d become by your laugh. I didn’t realize what she meant until I heard it.”

“I still don’t realize what you mean.”

“You didn’t laugh like that in school. With people, instead of at them.”

“Yes, well, I was a dick in school.”

Harry snorted. “That, too.”

Once we entered the house, I hung up my cloak and proceeded into the bathroom to stare at my reflection and wait until I saw my face again. “How long until it wears off?” Harry asked me.

“I took a three hour dose,” I said. “It should be about ten more minutes, now.”

“And you’re going to stare at yourself that whole time?”

“It will give me all the more satisfaction when I see myself again,” I said, a challenge in my voice warning him not to question it.

“Alright,” he called, walking into the living room. “But I knew something much more fun than staring at a mirror that we could be doing right now…”

“And it will be all the more fun for the wait.”

I heard him throw himself on the couch. “If you say so.”

I was right.

 


	17. The Escape

 

I woke up with an intense feeling of restlessness, one which I had hoped a good night’s sleep would dispel.

It had been building for a while—I could feel it deep in my muscles, making me jittery, and in my moods. I got depressed with so much pent-up energy. I usually didn't exercise if I could help it, except flying of course, but just getting up and walking around and talking to someone helped. And I wanted to talk. To a certain person in particular. Without Harry.

He was wonderful. He waslovely. He was handsome and much less of an idiot than I once thought. But I had to talk to Pansy—alone. I needed to talk to her about things he just couldn't accidentally overhear. Like what her involvement was in all this. If she knew. And I was not blaming her if she did—well, not much. I knew what it was like to feel that overwhelming, sickening twist in your gut that is coercion by immense fear, the thump and shudder of your heartbeat every time it thuds dully in your chest, the whirl of blood rushing through your ears. If Theo and Blaise had gotten themselves entangled in something much larger and more dangerous than themselves and had the audacity to draw Pansy in with them, or even talk to her about it, I needed to know. Because I needed to know how angry to be at them. And I needed to know how far away to get Pansy.

I knew Pansy was their friend, but I also knew she did not mean nearly so much to them as she did to me. And I knew, already, that Blaise’s values and mine were much too separate to ever be reconciled.

When I had felt the shadow of the Dark Lord towering over me and felt like I was drowning in darkness, my solace was my silence. At least I could control something. I could control what I said, and with that came information—and through that, involvement. I could at least protect someone, even if that someone was just moody, snide Pansy.

She stayed by me despite my silence, but I pushed her away. We don’t talk about it much.

I’d thought I was doing the right thing. But it hurt, just like everything did.

I was always exhausted. Carrying the weight of words unspoken was a burden like I’d never known before. Realizing that my parents were simply human and had made terribly, horribly flawed decisions was a revelation, one that struck me hard like a brick and made it all the more difficult to hide my misgivings.

Pansy tried to help. She would steal me food from the kitchens and make excuses for me when I was too overwhelmed with panic to get out of bed. She did my homework for me and cheered me up or gave me sass, whichever one she felt I needed that particular day.

I think she pitied me. But, for all my virulent disdain towards pity, I tolerated it. It was useful, it helped me, and above all it felt good just to know that even then, at my absolute worst, a humongous wreck just dangling by my fingernails above a huge chasm of anxiety and violence and ominously certain death, someone cared enough to let me be without demanding anything. Nobody had ever just let me be. I was always playing at something, except with Pansy.

I think she thought she loved me.

I don’t think she knew me enough.

I was honest with her. I let her see my face unmasked, my shoulders slumped and my eyes weary. But I was bitter, and hateful, and angry—and that, too, was one of the many secrets I kept.

I hated everyone else, but I especially hated myself. I wanted to die. I almost wished the Dark Lord would just get it over with. But he would never; he liked his games too much. I fantasized about Harry killing me, on those days when I couldn’t get out of bed. He would kill me quick and clean, no mess, no unnecessary pain, nothing but those green eyes, as green as the curse, and then darkness.

I wanted it so badly. I was so afraid of everything. But I couldn’t leave my mother. I couldn’t leave Pansy. And, when it came down to it, for all his flaws and frighteningly blind adoration, for all his faults and pockmarked morality and fatal hubris, I couldn’t leave my father, either.

I couldn’t keep my father or mother away from it. I couldn’t drive them away. The only thing that would do was send them closer to the Dark Lord, closer to the epicenter of it all. But Pansy was different.

I remember the stricken expression that crossed her face, pale with upturned brows and a gaping mouth, eyes shining brightly with withheld tears when I said those cutting words to her I’d practiced so many times. But then the conversation spiraled out of my control.

“You can’t do anything right,” I’d hissed at her, more venom in my voice than in Nagini’s bite. “You’re stupid, ugly, and worthless.”

“But I, we’re—Draco, we’re fr—”

“ _Friends?_ ” I sneered. “I don’t have friends. I have people to use. And you’ve proven yourself useless.”

“I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work,” she said shakily but determined. The bluish light cast from the lake haloed her features and bounced off her eyes, still too bright.

“I’m not doing anything,” I said haughtily. “You’re just too imbecilic to know when you’ve been had. Really, even Greg could figure this out.”

“You push people away,” she said with pursed lips. “I’ve known you since we were tiny. I know you do this.”

“You know _nothing_ about me.”

“You’re my best friend, Draco, I love y—”

“You don’t know what love _is_!” I exclaimed, my teeth snapping at the consonants on all my words. “You don’t love me. You never loved me. And nobody will ever love you, you selfish, belligerent fool!” I turned away from her as I said it, but I made sure not to make the words any less cutting. The words were difficult to say to her, but if I pictured my own face looking at me in a mirror rather than her defeated one, it was easier. It was even easier if I pictured her bloodless, slackened face after the damned Dark Lord made her an example of purebloods who didn’t pledge their allegiance to him immediately and wholeheartedly. I needed to get her away from me.

 _I’m doing this for her, for her, for her,_ I’d told myself. It didn’t make breathing any easier.

She hadn’t cried then and there, but I know she cried later. Much like I did, too. But after that, she was more distant until the war came crashing down, destroying everything. Then her parents bickered all the time. Her brother fled to America. She got her own place, and when I came to her dressed in rags, dirty and bloody where I’d been hit by the rocks or cans or bottles or whatever else was on hand that the passers-by had decided to hurl at me, skinny and desperate, she’d let me in. And we never talked about it.

I kept her away. It was difficult and painful but I’d done it, and I’d done it for her. I doubted Blaise and Theo had given her the courtesy, but I needed to know. I needed to figure out what to do. And I knew she would never speak candidly to me about it if the Savior was hovering in the hallway with his ear pressed to her door.

And now I had a wand, so I could apparate wherever I wanted.

For the past few days Harry had been hovering again, though this was especially pronounced whenever we went out in public. I think it was in part because he knew I was uncomfortable as Win, though I was getting used to him. And, of course, because of our discovery.

With Theo and Blaise under questioning and the attack still so recent, I doubted anything would happen. And even if it did, I had my wand, I had my mental barriers prepped and intact, and I had a particularly nasty acidic potion stored in a vial in my pocket.

That morning Harry made breakfast as usual, puttering about the kitchen and making sure I had a plate so full any reasonable person could only get through half and my tea just like how I always made it. I pretended to be absorbed in my book about space so I wouldn’t have to talk too much to him. I’m a very accomplished liar, but Harry is not nearly as stupid as I once thought he was, and he knew me much better than anyone I’d tried to play in ages.

He let me be, thankfully. I could feel him watching me occasionally though, and so I made a real effort to actually look like I was reading. I looked up when he reminded me that today he was going to be away for a few hours with Teddy, his godson, and nodded with a smile.

“He seems really sweet from what you’ve told me,” I said. I meant it.

“He is,” he replied, a grin tugging the corners of his mouth. “Maybe we could…maybe next time, when I watch him, you could come along? You don’t have to, I mean, if you don’t want to, but—”

“Sure,” I interrupted him, shutting the book and holding the page with a finger.

“Really?”

“Yeah. It sounds like fun.” Or, as fun as spending time with a small child could. I usually didn’t like children. They were dirty and unruly and loud. But I figured if it was just one by himself he couldn’t be that bad, and Harry obviously adored him, though it wasn’t particularly difficult to receive Harry’s love—the one requisite seemed to be to not be evil. He even, for some reason, seemed to have chosen _me_ , and I was very close to being so for quite a long time.

His smile was brilliant and warm. “He’ll love you,” he said, kissing me on the cheek. “I know it.”

I scoffed. “Maybe.”

“He will,” he said stubbornly. “I’ll make sure to tell him about you beforehand, so he knows you’re coming. I should be off soon though, Andromeda needs to leave soon for her meeting. I’ll be back at noon, alright?”

“Okay. Have fun,” I said, smiling when he absentmindedly placed another kiss on the top of my head before grabbing his coat off the hook and sweeping out the door. The movement almost kicked up enough wind to unsheathe Aunt Wallaburga from her curtain, but thankfully we’d had the presence of mind to put a few sticking charms on it, and so she stayed quietly asleep.

I let out a breath. I had three hours. That was much more than enough time. I would go, see Pansy, maybe force myself through whatever was waiting for me when I opened up my phone for the first time in ages to call Luna and tell her about it—I knew she would probably be able to sift through any information Pansy gave me better than I would, because she was less connected to her and therefore more objective. And after all that I would still have time to make a second batch of tea and cook myself something for lunch.

I lingered for a few minutes, just in case he forgot something. He never returned, and after half an hour had passed I decided I’d waited long enough.

Before I left, I double checked the door to make sure no wards were placed on it. I could feel a few with Harry’s magical signature on them, the distraction charm being one of them, and then one to ward off intruders, and another two for inside and outside the house, an alarm which would notify him if any unauthorized person entered or left the house. I couldn’t tell who had admittance from the ward itself, but I knew I wasn’t on the list.

Taking alarms like these apart without signaling the castor is difficult, but I have always loved studying the machinations of things, and spellwork and science are miraculously not so different. Plus, it helps to have an education in both Light and Dark magic. The two are very different, naturally, but understanding how they both work gives you a larger appreciation for the other and for myself at least being able to analyze both helped me understand how it was even feasible to channel magic as we did.

I gently tugged and pulled at the looser strands of magic, worrying a hole just small enough for me to slip through. It took time, concentration, and effort. But I had much of all three, and soon enough I’d wormed my way through all of Harry’s wards.

I then double checked for Weasley’s and found many of his own, very similar to Harry’s. He certainly had been trained well—working through his wards took much longer. I didn’t remember him being so meticulous in school. Granger must have worn off on him, or maybe, I grudgingly admitted, it was because of his own aptitude at his job. His magic was much more difficult to figure out, and though I knew much of that had to do with its unfamiliarity, a lot of it had to do with the advanced and calculated nature of his casting. As I slowly parried and blocked the tendrils of magic attempting to consume my own, I wondered if he would be any good at chess. Probably. By the time I was finished, beads of sweat were running down my temples from such prolonged and intense focus.

I checked for Shacklebolt’s signature, but thankfully I found nothing. I was already an hour into my rapidly shrinking time slot—I didn’t have any to waste.

I walked briskly to our apparition spot, keeping my head down and my hands in my pockets, hood covering my fair hair. Luckily it’s been the same cold and rainy weather that so often graces Britain around this time, so my posture was not abnormal and I didn’t see anyone look at me twice. Once I reached my destination, all I had to do was think of Pansy’s door and I was there.

I silently thanked her again for the presence of mind she’d had to give me access through the shop’s wards—though she knew that if she hadn’t, I likely would never have visited her. People still throw things at me, sometimes. Better to stay out of their way.

I knocked on her door and waited a few beats, standing awkwardly in her hall shuffling my feet. When she opened the door—thank Merlin it was her and not Millie, I doubt she would have let me in—her eyes widened and she pulled me inside by my arm.

“Where’s Potter?” she asked, looking up and down the hall before shutting her door.

I shook my head and wrote in the air with my wand. _Have you checked your apartment for—_

“Yes,” she said immediately. “Once we became potential suspects, a group of snotty arseholes burst in and crawled all over the fucking place. They found an eavesdropping spell with Blaise’s signature on it.” She sighed, picking invisible lint off her shirt. “I thought better of him. But, best not to trust others untowardly, isn’t that right love?” She looked me over. “Speaking of that, where is Potter?”

“I left him behind,” I replied. “Did the Arors suspect you and your roommates as well as Blaise and Theo?”

“Well, I was the last person you were with. It makes sense, I suppose. If you think all Slytherins are cowardly and self-involved.” She arched an eyebrow. “Aren’t you violating your parole?”

“It isn’t if nobody knows it,” I retorted with a smirk.

She scowled, brushing her fringe out of her eyes. “You have five minutes,” she said, turning away from me and starting to shove things in the bag she left on the kitchen counter. “I have to leave for class.”

“Pans, you didn’t know what Blaise and Theo were up to when they came here, did you?”

She turned back to me sharply, her brows furrowed, posture tense. “That Weasel told you about what they were about, then?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “How do you know?”

“I think he’s scared of me,” she grinned viciously. “In fact, I know it.”

“Pans, you’re not involved too, are you?”

She glared. “No,” she said, “and just the fact you’d ask me that makes me insufferably tired.” She shoved the last of her books in her bag and worried at her bottom lip with her teeth—she would mess up her makeup if she kept it up. I wanted to tell her to stop. “But I should have realized something was off. Blaise wasn’t himself, especially when you were around.”

“And none of your roommates are either?”

“Do you really think any of them would be capable of joining an extremist organization? The second time it comes around in five years?”

I shrugged. “Maybe…”

“I know you’re thinking of Millie,” Pansy snapped, and I was. “I know you don’t like her, but _I_ like her, and she would never.”

“Mm.” She hadn’t convinced me, but my own conceptions of Millie certainly did. I remembered her crying in the common room nearly every day during the spring of sixth year. It was pathetic and it grated on my nerves and it had left enough of an impression on me that I didn’t doubt she’d stayed far away. She wouldn’t be looking for a fight even if she was angry.

“Look, Draco, I have to go soon and don’t have the time to give this conversation what it needs. But I think for now you need to keep a low profile. In a way, it is good they attacked you, because now the Ministry is fairly certain at least that you’re not connected to them.” That thought struck me. I hadn’t even thought they would consider that, though of course I should have. If anyone would lead the rise of the fallen Death Eaters, it would be Lucius Malfoy’s son, the youngest Death Eater in history. And the rumors, if there were any, were probably saying just that. I wouldn’t know—I avoided reading the papers as much as I could. I didn’t like seeing my name, and it irked me seeing what they’d written about Harry, too. Especially when I saw Win’s face next to him.

“Though,” she said thoughtfully, stilling, “we did talk about Harry here. Definitely before Blaise and Theo stayed, and after as well.”

I thought of the drunken phone conversation I had with him in the bathroom that night. “So…what? They wanted to hit two birds with one stone? Kill the littlest Death Eater and shake the Boy Who Lived?”

Her eyes hardened. “If they had wanted you to die, they could have just killed you. Obviously they had no problem with Unforgiveable curses.”

“Yeah, they _Imperio_ ’d me instead. So what they wanted, then, was, what? For me to kill someone under the curse and then put up the Mark and frame me?”

“Exactly. That way you’d be framed for murder with almost no route out, because as far as anyone knew at the time, you were one of the only people in the world who knew how to cast it.  Potter would be discredited for speaking on your behalf in the trials, he’d feel betrayed that he entered into any sort of relationship with you, and all that would cumulate in a vehement statement against you on his behalf in order to save his own reputation—or at least so this group probably hoped.”

I hated hearing my own thoughts confirmed in Pansy’s voice, but it also made me feel less paranoid. This had been part of the reason I wanted to badly to talk to her; putting our heads together always made me feel less in the dark, even if it was just for reassurance. “Which in turn would land me straight into a cell next to my father’s.”

“Your family has a reputation for being both ruthless and powerful. If whatever leadership this organization has could spin the story in their favor, their numbers would probably increase substantially—everyone loves a martyr. I mean, look at Potter. People throw themselves at his feet.”

I felt my blood run cold and tried to ignore it. I knew, unlike Harry, that if it came to something like that, I wouldn’t be strong enough to escape unscathed. “Nobody would throw themselves at mine. They might throw hexes though.”

She _tsked_. “Only if you’re picky,” she said, a feeble attempt at a bad joke and she knew it. She sighed, running a hand over her face. “I hope we’re wrong.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “I hope Harry and the Weasel have the same sort of theory brewing. It makes sense.”

She raised an eyebrow. “It probably took much longer for them to come up with it than a simple conversation.”

I exhaled a laugh through my nose. “You’re probably right.”

There was a lull in the conversation while we sat lost in thought, different worried of mine stewing and claiming my attention. “Pansy, don’t you think with all this that you should be keeping a low profile too?” I asked. “They lived in your apartment. They know we’re friends. And not just Blaise and Theo, but whoever they were working under—if it was them who attacked me. The magic didn’t feel familiar, and, I don’t know. It could have been them. But out of the two I can’t picture Theo doing that. He doesn’t have the presence of mind to do anything with Legilimency, he smokes too much to be any good. But, anyway.” I was rambling. I needed to get back on track. I took a deep breath and held it for a few beats, Pansy watching me with sharp eyes. “I need to make sure you’re safe.”

 “I’m fine, Draco,” she said, getting up and slinging her bag over her shoulder.

“You think that, but—”

“I know more creative curses than you do,” she snipped. “I’ve had to, living here. And I always carry a knife with me. I know three different ways to gauge a man’s eyes out.” She clacked her long painted nails together. “I’m entirely capable of protecting myself.”

I shuffled uncomfortably. “Maybe it would be best, just for a little while, if you go and live with Caleb or back in with your parents—just until we’ve figured this out.”

“There is no figuring it out,” Pansy sighed. “A bad thing happened to you and you’re afraid if it happening again.”

“I have cause to worry.”

“I know you do! But I’m not their target. And even if I was, now is the safest I could possibly be. They wouldn’t be so stupid to try to target anyone again, now that everyone is jumpy from the Mark in the sky again.”

“Which is why I think you should move _now_ , instead of waiting.”

She patted my cheek patronizingly. “I’m not moving, Draco. Now, unless you’d like to stay a while in my empty apartment, I have to get going.”

“Pansy—”

She shot me a tight smile. “You’re not going to win, love.”

I sighed. I knew she would hate the idea of a guard even more than moving and had to hold my tongue to keep from asking her anyway. “I just don’t like it.”

“I survived the Carrows,” Pansy said confidently. “I can survive a few weeks of looking over my shoulder.” She ushered me out of her apartment and locked the door, reinforcing the anti-apparition spells cast on the doorway once more before turning to me and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

“You really must get Potter to take you out more,” she smiled. “You get worried when you’re cooped up.”

“I’m not his pet.”

She raised her eyebrows. “When is the last time you told him that? And, if that photo in the Prophet isn’t edited, who was he eating dinner with a few days ago?”

“It’s nothing,” I mumbled, too embarrassed to tell her it was only me in disguise.

She shrugged. “Keep telling yourself that. I have to be off.” She patted my shoulder. “Take care of yourself, Draco. I’ll be fine.”

 

                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

When I apparated back to the alley and turned out of it onto the street, I was prepared to get nearly knocked over by the force of the wind. I was not prepared to get nearly knocked over by the force of someone’s body moving at a very high velocity.

“Oomph!”

“Ow!”

I stumbled down the sidewalk in an attempt to keep my balance, one arm pinwheeling and the other holding the shoulder that was hit. A few steps away and I realized the other person’s wild hair and glasses were starkly familiar with a sinking sensation in my gut.

“Draco!” Harry exclaimed breathlessly, the body that crashed into me belonging to him, I could see now. “Are you alright? Have you been hurt? What happened?” Too many questions poured out of his mouth as he reached for me, his eyes scanning my face and body worriedly.

“Harry, I—”

“Did someone try to hurt you again?” His eyes burned like fire, but his hands cradled my head gently, his fingers running over my face and through my hair much more swiftly than normally, trying to feel for any bumps or bruises. “Did someone find the house?”

“No, it wasn’t—Nobody—” His hands were too distracting, I couldn’t think with him tugging at me everywhere and I was still shaken by his sudden appearance. “Harry, stop,” I said, grabbing his wrists and holding them out. “I left.”

“What?”

I took a deep breath and tried to calm my agitation. “I left the house,” I explained gently, but my heart was in my throat. One would think at this stage in my life I would be used to disappointing people, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t understand why Harry was back so damn early—he’d said three hours and my spellwork had been flawless. I’d checked and re-checked it before I left. There were no faults, I’d made sure of it.

“But _...why?”_ he asked, his voice pitching with frustration and urgency.

“Nothing happened,” I assured him quickly, loosening my grip on his wrists. “Nobody came in, I’m fine, I’m not hurt at all. I just needed to talk to Pansy.”

“Without me?” I hadn’t seen a scowl like _that_ on his face since Hogwarts. “Or _any_ protection?”

I scratched my head and stared at the ground. “I figured you wouldn’t notice,” I muttered. “You said three hours.”

“Draco, what the hell!” He grabbed my wrist and started pulling me back to Grimmauld Place.

“Ow,” I protested under my breath, feeling too confused and ashamed to really voice it. Harry heard me though, I could tell because his hold loosened slightly, though it stayed just as firm. Even though he was just a tad shorter than me, he was walking so fast I had to do an uncomfortable sort of half-jog to keep up with him.

He threw open the door and we stumbled inside, Harry shutting it firmly immediately after. I could see the red of an agitated alarm ward crackling around the entrance and was completely dumbfounded. “I—” I bit my tongue before I gave myself away and quickly switched what I was going to say. “I can defend myself perfectly well without being coddled.”

“It’s not coddling,” Harry snapped. “It’s official Ministry protection.”

Embarrassment at such blatant subpar magic for not finding the hidden ward and shame at being caught crackled rapidly into fire. “So they’ve switched that now, have they? I’m no longer a _prisoner_? I just can’t bloody go out because I’m an official victim, is that it?”

“I—” Harry tugged at his hair. “You—god damn it, Malfoy!”

“I’m sorry I don’t tolerate being cooped up like an animal well,” I snipped. “So sorry the Death Eater is so bloody _evil_ he needs to be fucking hidden away like a fucking blemish on the face of the Earth, fuck you very much, _Potter_ ,” I spat his last name at him, the taste of it bitter in my mouth.

Harry’s eyes flashed. “The reason you need to stay _with me_ is because I know you’re not!” he yelled. “And there are people who are trying to harm you! And you went right to the last place they stayed in! Do you even realize the curses they could have put on that place?”

“Last time we went I was fine!”

“Last time we went I was with you! If they’re brutal enough to know how to cast the Mark, they know enough Dark Magic to cast a curse with caveats!”

“And _I_ know enough Dark Magic to fight it off!”

“You’re so fucking arrogant! You _know_ that’s not true! Last time you barely managed to escape—”

“Last time I hadn’t been excepting a beating to the head!”

“I fucking hate you!” Harry yelled, pacing away to walk through the kitchen. “You don’t give a shit about your safety!”

“I could say the same for you, _Savior_.” I stayed standing next to the stairs. If I followed him I was afraid we’d start hexing each other, and I didn’t know what sort of protective magic was in this house to prevent violence in it. I didn’t want anything backlashing at me.

“That’s different,” he scowled, cooling off a little and rubbing his face. “That was necessary.”

“Hardly,” I muttered, but he ignored me.

“Draco,” he tried, his voice low and his tone pleading. “I know this is hard. But until we figure out how large this organization is it’s not safe to move. Once we have an estimate we can see what to do to improve this situation, even it’s moving to a different country. At least then you’d be able to go out freely.”

“You’ve been saying that first bit for weeks.”

Harry sighed. “They’ve sent out Unspeakables to try to get more information, but infiltrating a criminal organization like this takes trust, and that takes time. I’m sorry Draco. But you have to stay with me.”

“Ugh,” I sighed. “Why do you even give a shit?”

His brow furrowed. “I think I’ve made that fairly obvious.”

“No, I mean, why did you even start talking to me?”

He bit his lip. “It just felt…unfinished. You and me. The…whatever we had, back at Hogwarts. I needed, I don’t know, closure, I guess. Or something.”

I snorted. “You certainly got something.”

He still stared. “So you promise not to leave?”

“Sure,” I muttered, analyzing the stitching on my shoes.

“I want you to look at me when you say it.”

“ _Sure_ ,” I repeated, meeting his eyes.

He nodded. “I’ve left Teddy with Andromeda,” he said. “I pulled her out of her meeting. He’ll stay with her today. I’m staying here.”

I sighed. Of course he was. But at least he wasn’t still angry.

“How did you hide that ward?” I asked timidly. “I thought I’d managed to get through all of them.”

He shot me a murderous look. “Which is something we’ll talk about later,” he said, walking over to the door and pulling out his wand, tapping the ward to set it back to normal and then starting to analyze the other’s he’d set with all sorts of pops and crackles. “This one isn’t mine. It was Moody’s. Once ownership of the house passed to me, the ward sends an alert straight to me.”

“Oh.” That explained it, then. I hadn’t been searching for Mad-Eye’s magical signature. The knowledge made me feel a little lighter—at least I hadn’t missed something shockingly obvious.

I watched him work for a little while, and then, feeling awkward, decided to retreat into me room. I rounded the corner, but then, hesitating, I stuck my head back in the stairway. “Harry?” I called.

“Hm?” he asked, not turning around. That was good. I could do this if he didn’t turn around.

I took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry,” I said, turning back and fleeing immediately so I wouldn’t have to look at him.

I don’t know what he looked like, but I couldn’t hear the wards for the time it took me to walk back to my room. And then when I shut the door, it didn’t matter.

I spied Etty lounging on the side of my bed. Reaching out to pet her, I told her, “You’re lucky you’re a cat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I'm super sorry for the late update, this past week has had me swamped with things to do. Thanks for reading!


	18. The Banquet

 

_“A bad thing happened and you’re afraid of it happening again.”_

Pansy’s words kept bouncing around in my head. Of course I was. Of _course_ I was afraid. Of a lot of things. Aside from immanent doom by a mysterious organization, the next scariest thing I could think of was meeting Granger again for the first time in years. I’d seen her at the trials and in the paper, but at this damn banquet I would be expected to see her and talk with her. I hadn’t had to look her in the face since before Harry and I became friends, back when I was seething with bitterness and a combustible mix of shame and pride that made me much too unstable to even contemplate apologizing to her for what happened on the Manor floor. But now I didn’t know where I stood. I was friendly—sort of—with Ron. And I was certainly _something_ with Harry, though I was hesitant to call it anything, because calling it something real would make it so, and I didn’t know what I wanted. I wanted him. I wanted to be safe. I wanted him to be safe. But I didn’t know if I could have all of those at one time.

I hunched over the cauldron further, peering into the bubbling contents. I figured if I threw myself into research, I couldn’t brood too much about that ominous fundraiser. I’d made a mixture of all the ingredients I’d listen before, stolen from the Polyjuice recipe. I’d made a few changes and added in more specific ingredients, so hopefully if this worked, I would be able to retain my body and whichever select features I desired.

I’d retrieved one of Pansy’s hairs on my escapade—I my own was much too recognizable to keep. I wanted to darken my skin tone, too, because heaven knows I would look terrible with my coloring and Pansy’s straight, dark hair, so I stole Harry’s lotion because it was easier than ripping off one of his fingernails (and I wasn’t entirely sure if a fingernail would work, either, considering skin and nail are made up of different sorts of substances). I knew he’d touched it enough that skin cells—which I just learned about in another one of my science books, who knew about cells? Nobody in the wizarding world told me. Absurd. If we could make Polyjuice with a strand of hair and no knowledge about cellular and molecular structure, I could scarcely imagine what we could do if we blended both science and magic.

However, I was concerned about how the agents in the actual lotion itself would react to the bases I’d put in my potion. I sucked my lip staring into the viscous mixture and tried to think about how I could remedy it, because whereas to my calculations the substance in my cauldron was supposed to be turning a faint and rather ugly orange, it was instead a muted grey. Maybe next time we snogged, when he wasn’t frustrated with me, I could find a way. I snorted. There was no subtle way to force someone to trim a nail.

Then again, given the perpetual smudges on his glasses and the ridiculous state of his hair, he probably needed a manicure. Not that I knew for sure how to give one, but I figured it wouldn’t be out of character for me to lecture him. And then I could—well, I would have to find them once he was done. I didn’t want to send Kreacher after them for fear that residual house elf magic would tamper with their effects.  Ugh. Disgusting.

I rubbed my face and sighed. At least I’d already rummaged through the garbage before, when times were particularly tough, so I knew how to subvert my pride. Though it was still painful.

One of my alarms went off and it was time to start pouring the concoction from my iron cauldron to my larger copper one. It was excepted to expand with heat, and the mixture would react with the iron in a manner that evened the effects of each ingredient regarding the direct change in my appearance, so one wouldn’t be incredibly more potent than the other.

Unfortunately, an unpleasant high-pitched whistled emanated from the cauldron the moment I poured the potion in. I had the good sense to drop the other cauldron I was holding and sprint behind my bureau for cover before it exploded with a resounding _crack!_

Potion sprayed everywhere with a simmer and an acrid scent filled the air. I uncovered my face from my hands and realized that the particularly large globs were smoking, some looking set to burst into flames. Panicking, I set to cast a hurried _augmenti_ around the room, pausing to go over rapidly the flammable ingredients to make sure nothing would react badly with water. My mind screeching to a halt and coming up blank, I muttered a hurried protection spell over me, and hoped for the best.

Luckily, the _augmenti_ worked. Unluckily, another resident of the house smelled the smoke before it did.

_Crack!_

_Oh, fuck_.

The old house elf didn’t say anything, but Vanished all the water and everything in sight that even thought about smoking with one hand while tugging on his ear with the other. He looked murderous, which was alarming, because even his normal expression was intimidating.

“I’m sorry, Kreacher. I was trying to make a potion and it went south.”

I could hear him muttering under his breath, but I waited. He gave his ear another good yank and surveyed the room, making sure he had managed to Vanish everything.

“This is the most ancient and noble house of Black,” Kreacker muttered at me in a vaguely threatening way. “Most ancient and noble.”

I bit my lip and shrugged. “Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

He stared me down before disapparating suddenly. I had a sinking feeling he would complain to Wallaburga, and I did _not_ want to have to deal with her again.

 

                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Harry was dressed in the same robes as he’d worn that night on our date, simple but well-fitting. I transfigured the hem to look a little nicer, and though the spell would wear off after a few hours, it was the first impression that was truly important.

I fiddled with Win’s hair, trying to make it lay the way I wanted. His hair was so much more difficult to style than my own. It was so stubborn, especially this one cowlick right at the temple that shifted one of Win’s curls against the growth of the others.

I was hesitant to do my typical going-out routine with Win because it wasn’t my face or my body and I feared I would again get that odd pang of jealousy if Harry looked at me too much, but then I figured it would be nice to go out in a crowd and be able to socialize without being despised, so I decided to look as good as I could. I even put on a little bit of that glittery moisturizer Pans had lent me before a particularly raucous night out that I forgot to return to her. It looked good with Win’s darker skin tone, but would have looked stunning on my own.

Harry caught my eye in the mirror next to the door as I was doing a last-minute check before we left and squeezed my hand. “You look beautiful,” he said. “A drop down from your usual gorgeous, but still.”

“Mm,” I hummed, unconvinced, but satisfied enough to let him lead me out the door. I always love a little flattery. The wards, now doubled in strength and three times as noticeable, flashed blue when Harry and I left.

“I think those are overkill,” I told him as he locked the door and we walked to the apparition point.

“If it saves Kingsley from killing me, I’ll do it,” he said. “I shouldn’t even be the one guarding you. It’s a conflict of interest. It’s just, out of everyone—”

“You have the most experience with Death Eaters, yes, I know.”

“Which are the people who attacked you,” he said, squeezing my hand. “Not you.”

“Tell the Prophet that.”

“Tell the Prophet anything and they’ll run with it to make a story. According to them, I’ve had nineteen different sexual partners in the past six months.”

I side-eyed him. “That’s ridiculous. Do they even know you?”

“It is, they don’t and they don’t care to. Much like how they treat you.”

“Yes, well,” I muttered. “I stopped reading the Prophet ages ago.”

We arrived at the apparition spot. “Are you ready?” Harry asked me.

I rubbed my arm, suddenly hesitant. I’d been trying not to think about meeting Granger too much, and I’d been doing a good job of it up until now.

“What’s wrong?”

“I…” I felt stupid, trying to talk about this with Harry. She was one of his best friends. He adored her. I didn’t want to dredge up all the bad memories we’d been tip-toeing around. We could joke about the houses and needle each other about Quiddich and nothing, but when it came to this, the war, the things we did, the things I did, I couldn’t speak.

“Are you nervous?”

“Shut up, Potter,” I muttered, defensive. “I don’t get nervous.”

Harry raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment. He moved like he was going to run a hand through my meticulously styled hair, but thought better of it and held my shoulder instead. Good decision on his part, if he messed it up before we even got anywhere I might have bit him.

“It’ll be fine,” Harry said gently. “I promise. No one even knows who you are.”

“A few do,” I muttered sourly, trying to take deep breaths and work up my meager courage. Merlin knows Harry took the lion’s share and left none for myself.

“Just Ron and Hermione. But are you worried about them?”

“Not Ron…”

“Hermione?”

“Granger is…” I trailed off, thinking about the resounding smack her hand made when it connected with my cheek so many years ago and wincing. I hoped it wouldn’t happen again. “Intimidating.”

Harry gave me a small smile. “Yeah,” he agreed. “She can be. She won’t do anything tonight, though. Nor do I think she would do anything at all, besides maybe give you a lecture.”

“Really?”

“Half the reason Ron is so open with you is because she convinced him that holding grudges would only exacerbate the tensions the war left. She cited all sorts of examples from muggle history—”

 _I bet I know a few_ , I thought.

“—and she was the one who convinced me to find you in the first place, back at the library.”

“Really?” I asked, turning to him in surprise.

“Mm-hmm,” Harry hummed. “She knew I felt aimless after quitting the Aurors. She figured getting closure in one aspect of my life, at least, would help. Not that she assumed something like this would happen,” he admitted, “but when I told her she didn’t seem all that astonished.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure how to process that.

“Not,” Harry began, “that that means you shouldn’t acknowledge what happened at the Manor. But it means that if you ever feel inclined to give her an apology, she’ll accept it—though for tonight I would try just meeting her face to face.” He squeezed my shoulder gently. “It’ll be fine.”

“Hm.” I felt it better to nod than say anything else. I didn’t feel like making a fight out of nothing. Harry seemed assured. Just because I wasn’t didn’t mean I would make us stay here until my Polyjuice wore off.

“Are you ready?”

“Oh, go on with it,” I sighed, trying to achieve a cavalier tone and not entirely succeeding, though it was close enough. “It’s not like anyone knows who I am, you said so. I can do whatever I want.”

“Within reason please,” Harry said apprehensively, and I snorted.

With a twist in the bottom of my stomach, we were gone.

 

The fundraiser was much bigger than I’d assumed. I recognized many people from Hogwarts, former students and professors alike, as well as more than a few very important Ministry employees. And those were only the people I recognized.

Harry introduced me to everyone as Win and left it at that. He didn’t like socializing, I could tell, and tried to hover off to the side of the conversation, responding to direct questions clumsily. It pained me, and so I decided to step in and save him from feeling hopelessly awkward.

I found myself locked in conversation with an employee from the Ministry’s Muggle Artifacts department about what exactly a computer would do. She was surprised by my knowledge, and so I quickly made up a Squib cousin who went to school at a Muggle university.

This prompted her to introduce me to a man named Sebastian Seymour, founder of the most influential Squib organization in the UK. I actually found what he had to say quite interesting, and hadn’t really given the topic much thought previously. I never knew that Squibs had such limited rights under the Ministry, and honestly didn’t understand why more didn’t simply leave our society—but then, if they did, they would run into the same sorts of problems I did, without the ability to use magic as a safeguard.

Harry lingered by my side the whole time, not saying much. Occasionally he left and got us some food or another drink or two. During one of those times another man walked up to me and started flirting, to which I was honestly a bit taken aback. Not because he was particularly bad looking or anything, but I’d forgotten I didn’t look like myself, and although I often flirted with the muggles in the restaurant and at clubs, nobody from the wizarding world ever flirted with me unless they wanted something.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, trying not to blush. Luckily I think Win didn’t flush as easily as I did. “I’m sorry—I much appreciate it, but I’m actually here with someone.”

“Oh! I didn’t realize,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “He’s very lucky,” he said, leaning in. “And just in case you change your mind, have this.” He snapped his fingers and a little scrap of parchment with his name on it appeared. It would have been more impressive if I hadn’t seen him using his wand behind his back. “I work in the sports administration department. Anytime you want to call me up, just go to the front desk and ask for me. I could get us _phenomenal_ seats to the next Cannons game,” he promised with a wink.

“I, uh—” I tittered a laugh and took the scrap, running my hand through Win’s dumb curls.

“Oh! Harry Potter,” he said, turning to look at him, who was walking over with two glasses of wine held precariously in one hand. He shook his free one with both of his enthusiastically. “Pleasure to meet you, really.”

“Thanks,” Harry smiled, a bit stiffly. “I see you’ve met my boyfriend.”

The expression on the poor bloke’s face made me launch into a coughing fit to keep from laughing. Once he got over his shock, he stumbled over a quick excuse and then likewise stumbled away, tripping over his own feet in his embarrassment.

“He really wasn’t doing any harm,” I laughed, wiping the corner of one of my eyes and reaching over to take my class. “Just hapless, that’s all.”

Harry hummed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “It was funny to see his face, though.”

Once I’d finally finished laughing, which took quite a while, I tucked myself more firmly under his arm and sipped my wine, a pleased little smirk playing on my lips. “So, boyfriend, huh?”

“I figure it’s a good title for you.”

“Mm,” I hummed contentedly.

Harry steered me over to Ron and Hermione. It was the first time I’d seen her in years and she looked stunning. She’d managed to tame her curls into an elegant, wispy style that reminded me of a cloud, without straightening it like I remembered she had for the Yule Ball. The red dress she wore flattered her and I could appreciate her taste, even if I didn’t voice it. I was too worried about what she may or may not have thought of me to say anything much, and was not at all sure how to address it.

“Malfoy,” she said softly so no one would overhear, in a gentler tone than I’d ever heard her say my name. “I’ve heard a lot about you recently.”

“My reputation precedes me,” I told her.

“That’s not the bad thing it used to be,” she assured me. I raised an eyebrow and she raised one back. I knew there was still that faint sense of combative challenge between us, but it was diluted, and she, like Ron, seemed willing to let the past be.

Naturally, Harry was much more talkative with his friends, so I tried not to talk much, deciding to observe instead. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, and so it was safer just to not say anything at all and figure out more their—specifically, her—sense of humor.

A brief commotion occurred later in the night when Kingsley, who had appeared briefly to show his support, had to leave urgently, trailing a half-dozen other witches and wizards in his wake. I wasn’t sure what was going on, and neither was Harry, so we continued socializing (or rather, I continued socializing while Harry stood at my shoulder).

It was refreshing to talk to people candidly, without worrying about hiding my magic or whether or not they were about to hex me. Even if they didn’t know who I was. I loved the way I could make people laugh and have them hang on to my words. It made me feel confident, that and the bubbling effect from the drinks I’d had, confident enough to flirt more forwardly than I usually did with Harry.

He kissed my temple. “You’re enjoying yourself.”

“Astonishingly.”

“I’m glad.”

“You hate these sorts of things, don’t you?”

He sighed. “Very much.”

“At least it’s not a swarm of reporters.”

“No, it’s just a bunch of people trying to say whatever they think will please me.”

“I think I know something that’ll please you,” I said with a grin, my voice soft to make it difficult for others to hear.

He bit back a smile. “Do you really?”

“Mm-hmm,” I hummed, pecking him on the lips. “But you’ll have to wait until we get home.”

His arm tightened around me. “I can do that,” he said. “It shouldn’t be much longer. I hope.”

I laughed.

We meandered around a bit more, and I was eyeing the food table when one of the witches I’d seen leave with Shacklebolt walk up to Harry and speak to him in low tones. His expression turned very serious and I saw him glance over to me. A sinking feeling in my gut, I walked back over to him as the witch walked away, back out the doors.

“What was that?” I asked, concerned. Harry looked very troubled.

“I have to go,” he said abruptly.

“Oh,” I said, even more confused. “Well, then, I’ll go with—”

“No,” he interrupted, scanning the crowd, “it’d be better if you didn’t. I’ll get Hermione.”

“What?”

“I’ll be right back,” he told me, his hand sliding off my arm as he walked speedily over to Hermione. I couldn’t see where Ron was. In fact, I couldn’t see his trademark ginger hair head and shoulders above the rest of us in the ballroom at all. I watched them as Harry talked to her urgently and they began walking back towards me. His face was grim. Hers was troubled.

“What’s going on?” I asked, frustrated and confused as Harry gently led me out of the room with a hand on the small of my back. “Is it something to do with Blaise or Theo? It’s not Pansy, is it? Or Luna?” My blood ran cold to think that something happened to Luna. I knew Pansy could take care of herself, but I couldn’t imagine Luna had a brutal bone in her body. Or had they found someone here? Another suspect? A foiled attack? “Harry?”

He stopped walking for a moment to pull me into a hug right in the middle of the hall. “I’m sorry. I know you’re confused. But I want you to be somewhere safe before we can tell you what’s going on.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, my pulse racing and my thoughts careening though my head.

“Hermione’s taking you to the safe house,” he told me. “You’re going to floo back with her.”

“Where are you going?”

“Kingsley’s office,” he said. “His floo is one of the only ones with unrestricted international access.”

“But who—”

“Draco,” Hermione interrupted, my name clunky on her tongue but surprising nonetheless. “I’ll explain everything. Better than Harry can. But only when we get to Grimmauld Place.”

I exhaled and bit my bottom lip, looking her over. “Alright,” I nodded, glancing back over to Harry. Satisfied, he held my shoulder and kissed me quickly on the cheek, giving Hermione a rapid “Thank you” before disappearing down the hall, his actions so rapid I didn’t even have the chance to return his kiss.

“Come on,” she said, guiding me to the floo. 

I hated traveling by floo, but I was so preoccupied I didn’t really notice. We both climbed out of the fireplace, trailing soot all over the carpet, and I promptly rounded on her.

“What’s going on?” I asked as calmly as I could, trying to make my voice devoid of emotion, my face a mask like it always became in a crisis.

“We were just informed that the Magical Ministry of Defense in Paris has been attacked,” she said, the words directly to the point. I stopped breathing. I almost didn’t hear her next words. “We have significant reason to believe the attackers are linked to the organization behind your assault, though we don’t as of yet know who they are.”

“My mother,” I croaked hollowly. “My mother. She works—”

“I know,” Hermione said, cutting me off. “Harry is flooing her right now. She’ll be fine, Draco.”

“You don’t _know_ that!” I exclaimed, my voice pitching. “You don’t—she—” I couldn’t even get the words out, I was so panicked. “She—”

“She’ll be fine,” she repeated.

“Fuck!” I yelled, both my hands tugging at my hair. “I need to see her.” I took a step towards the fireplace.

“You can’t do that.”

“Why _the fuck_ not?”

She shoved a little hand mirror she’d taken from her purse in my face. “You’re still under the potion—she won’t know who you are!”

“It doesn’t matter! I just need to see her!” Win’s eyes were wide. His face was blotchy and his hair was a mess. I batter the mirror away.

“Draco, she can’t know your alias. No one can know your alias but the few who already do, otherwise it defeats the purpose. You’d just be putting her in more danger, making her more of a target.”

“They tried to kill her,” I said, stilling. “Oh, god, they could have killed her. She could be dead. It’s all my fault. Oh my god. Oh my god.” I felt tears sting my eyes and a lump in my throat.

_If only I hadn’t talked to Harry—if only I hadn’t gone down Knockturn—if only I’d stayed with her in France—_

“Sit,” Hermione said, firmly but gently. She backed me into the sofa and pressed me to sit down. I was too overwhelmed to do anything but go with her.

“She could be dead and I’m just fucking sitting here and I—” I clawed at my hair harder and Hermione reached out to still my hands. I brought them to hold my face instead, elbows on knees, trying not to hyperventilate.

“She’s fine,” she said firmly, a hand on my knee.

“You don’t _know_ ,” I sobbed into my hands.  

I couldn’t see what she was doing, but soon the air was filled with the scent of cinnamon and jasmine and vanilla and a shiver traveled down my spine as I felt a gentle wave of her magic wash over me.

“She’s fine,” Hermione repeated, the hand still warm on my knee. I stared at her dark red nails as numbness crawled through me, making it easier to breathe and making me feel like I was floating above myself.

“What did you do?” I asked her hoarsely.

“Calming spell,” she said, moving the hand to my shoulder. “Harry told me you get panic attacks. I didn’t want one to come on. He’ll be back soon and if you’re in a state, he won’t be able bring you back and see her once the Polyjuice wears off.”

I grunted, my jaw clenched, and focused on breathing.

I counted the tocks I heard from the clock. When I lost count, I started all over again, and again, and again. The seconds passed too slowly. I could tell, despite her reassuring words, that Hermione was worried too. We didn’t say much. I didn’t move hardly at all. At some point, the potion wore off. I felt my skin stretch and my bones shift, but only vaguely, the calming spell numbing everything and making me feel like I was under water. It could have been soon, it could have been later. The only thing that mattered was the hands of the clock. It felt like an eternity in limbo.

The fire roared to life, blazing green and spitting Harry out. I stood up so fast it made my head spin.

“She’s fine,” he said immediately. “She’s fine, she’s alright, she’s back in her house and completely safe. She has guards stationed at every door and window. She’s safe, Draco. It’s ok.”

I stood still for the time it took his words to wash over me. “Oh,” I said weakly, tears starting to roll down my face. “Oh, I—she—” I bit back a sob. “She—”

“Shh,” Harry said, pulling me into a tight hug and burying my head in his shoulder. “She’s alright, baby. She’s safe.”

I clutched him to me. All the emotion I’d been holding back, all the sheer terror I’d just barely managed to control flooded out and I couldn’t stop shaking. For a long while, I was too overwhelmed to do much else other than simply stand there.

Once I’d composed myself, I pulled back and sniffled. “I want to see her,” I said, my voice watery. Harry nodded.

Just before we stepped into the floo, I saw him turn to Hermione and mouth an earnest _Thank you_ to her. She just met my eyes and nodded. And then the flames rose up and engulfed us.

I stumbled out of the fireplace when we reached my mother’s house, bashing my knee against brick and hitting my head but unable to feel it. “Mum?”

“Draco?” I saw her in the hall, pale and ragged, her robes a little singed and her face drawn. My breath caught in my throat. I threw myself towards her and pulled her into a fierce hug. She held me back so tightly it hurt, but I wasn’t about to let her go.

That was the first time either of us had seen the other cry.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I stayed with my mother as long as I could.

We rarely spoke, but having each others’ company was what mattered. When we did talk, it was in short conversations, and mum got directly to the point instead of skirting around it like she sometimes did. We were both too exhausted for that.

We’d been sitting by the fire, drinking tea. Mum was drawing, her hand moving aimlessly across the page. I was reading the same sentence in the book I’d picked up for the fifth time in a row.

“Petit dragon.” She broke the silence, using the childish nickname she used to call me before I went to Hogwarts. “Are you happy?”

I stared at her, thinking about the question and what may have prompted it. Was I happy?

What was happiness?

I was happy that I had Harry, and Pansy, and Luna. I was happy that I had someone who would make sure I ate and I could be disgustingly domestic with. I was happy that I had people I knew would fight for me.

But I was also scared. I didn’t want to fight. I didn’t want to be a target. I didn’t want my family or friends to be targets. I couldn’t stand being cooped up in Grimmauld Place, but I couldn’t deal with the repercussions of actually leaving. And I still needed to take Dreamless Sleep to get rid of the nightmares. I still had issues coming to terms with the war. I still swung between that strange mixture of feeling ashamed of being a burden, feeling irate that I didn’t have the same freedoms I used to, and feeling like I deserved to be punished. I still had issues with myself, and there were days I hated myself so much it was an effort just to hide it from Harry.

Was I happy?

“Assez,” I told her. _I’m happy enough_.

She nodded, and the only sound for the rest of the night was the crackle of the fire and our footsteps as we moved.

After two days, she told me it was alright if I went back to London the next time Harry checked in on us. Before he came, though, she asked me to do a favor for her, one she knew I didn’t want to. One she knew was difficult for me. But also one she couldn’t do herself.

I agreed, if only for her. I didn’t want to. But for her, I would.

 

I couldn’t stand being alone. I stayed near Harry and touched him whenever I could, anything from little brushes of contact while we cooked to stopping him in the middle of the hallway for a hug. I couldn’t sleep unless he was there to help me through the nightmares. One night when I was particularly overcome with worry and sadness, I just crawled into his lap, wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his hips and buried my face in the crook of his neck, listening to the thump of his heartbeat and the whoosh of his breathing for hours while his hands ran up and down my back.

He was so good. He was so, so good. He never got angry with me. He never became frustrated when my nightmares woke us up. He never got upset when I couldn’t stomach the food we’d made. He was so kind to me, even when I knew I was being burdensome. Always concerned. Always compassionate. I deserved none of it.

He told me the Ministry was working with Paris to piece together what had happened. At 8 o’clock, five different wizards had gone into the Département de Défense Magique through different entryways. Through a mixture of spellwork and muggle technology, they’d managed to kill fifteen different people and injured more than fifty. The Dark Mark took over the sky. It was theorized they’d picked an off hour to attack because during the usual work day security was tighter. It was speculated to be part of an extremist terror scheme. It was known that this attack was directly correlated to mine, because no one else knew how to cast the Mark.

One day he left the Prophet out on the table when he was done reading it. The front page was plastered with photographs depicting the massacre. I watched with a mounting feeling of nausea as the moving pictures showed a man waving a gun in one hand and a wand in the other, shooting madly, his face covered.

I burned the newspaper.

The cold, calculating part of my mine took over when the rest of me was overwhelmed. It didn’t make sense for them to attack Mother if they wanted to make me out to be some sort of martyr for their cause, like Pansy had speculated. That meant that either making me a hero figure wasn’t their original goal or that my mother wasn’t their intended target. If my mother wasn’t their target, then the Ministry must have been.

They couldn’t be a simple resurgence of Death Eater ideology if they employed muggle technology to help them. And from what anyone could tell, no half-bloods of muggle-borns had been attacked. So they must have been using the Mark as a symbol for something else. If creating terror was their one aim, that would certainly do so.

I didn’t think, though, that this was just about spreading terror. If it was, they Blaise wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of scouting me and eavesdropping on my conversations. They would have picked an easier target, any target, and gone for it. No, there was a reason. The longer I thought about it the more Pansy’s explanation made sense to me. But what was the cause they wanted me to go down for, if it wasn’t the hatred of muggles?

I wasn’t sure. Excluding Pansy and the people who lived at her apartemnt, I hadn’t been seen in the wizarding world since just after my trials until I apparated with Harry outside of Florean’s. So what could I possibly be martyred for?

I was too exhausted to keep thinking about it. I’d talked circles around Harry about it, and his guess was as good as mine.

Harry was great. Harry was perfect. But I needed to feel normal again. I needed to feel like there was more to my life than just fear and violence.

With one hand on Etty’s back and one hand curled around the little device in my lap, I screwed up my courage and hit the power button.

The little bitten apple lit up on the screen and I put the phone face down on the covers of my bed so I wouldn’t have to see the screen light up with texts and vibrate with notifications. If it did. It might not. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t know, either.

_It’s time. I need to stop being afraid. I need to start being angry._

Much easier said than done.

I paced around the room as my phone buzzed and buzzed and buzzed. I tapped my foot and stared at the wall until it stopped, and stared at it a little longer until I had built up my courage.

Sophie texted me. Ryan texted me. Even my boss from the restaurant texted me.

_Where are you?_

_Are you still asleep? Your shift started an hour ago._

_Don’t worry about coming into work. Take as much time as you need to rest. Your boyfriend came in and spoke to me today about what happened. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll welcome you back. Hope you feel better soon._

_I heard about what happened. Are you alright?_

_Hey, Draco. Are you okay man?_

I sifted through all of them, deleting them as I read them. I wasn’t about to respond. I could never see them again anytime in the foreseeable future, so why bother rubbing salt into the wound?

I had no texts from Luna, but I did have voice messages.  I opened the first one.

“Draco? I’m calling to make sure the farthling warblers didn’t get to you.” Her voice had a smile in it. “You’re usually so on time, so I decided to buy your drink for you. You probably won’t pick up this message before you get here, because I expect you’ll be here any minute with an elaborate excuse for why you were late, but just in case I’m sitting at the back and I’ve saved a seat for you.”

And the second. “It’s been nearly an hour. I’m going over to your flat, in case you’re still asleep.”

And the third. “Draco.” Her voice was urgent now, no teasing to be found. “Please pick up. I don’t know where you are or what happened, but please tell me you’re safe.

The fourth was recorded a day after the other three. “Hello, Draco,” her voice played, tired and sad and weighted down with worry. “Harry told me what happened. You have worked so hard and grown so much and it is not your fault that this world can be a terrible place. This is not your fault, Draco, don’t blame yourself. Some people will find any excuse to fight.

“Trust Harry. I know it sounds feeble coming from me, while I’m outside of the situation. But being able to trust someone will make it better, I know. Also, this is probably little consolation for you, but I have Etty with me right now. She’s lovely, but she wants to see you again. Like I do.

“Be strong. You say you’re not, but you are. You will get through this. Just be brave and be smart and it will be alright. And remember there are so many people who care for you, myself included.”

I called her back.

I smiled when I heard her voice, clearing my throat to dispel the waver in it. “Hey. Fancy a coffee?”

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

“Something else is bothering you,” Luna observed, taking a long draught from her hot chocolate. It left a little whipped cream moustache on her upper lip until she licked it off.  We were at another muggle café, and I’d managed to convince Harry that because we were in strictly muggle parts this afternoon, I didn’t need to Polyjuice—and somehow, miraculously, managed to do so without much fight. I knew he was worried about others, but I think he was more worried about my own state of mind after how unstable I’d been, and he knew seeing Win wouldn’t help. Plus I whinged about how awful the Potion tasted and how unpleasant it was to shift.

I had just finished recounting what had happened to her, of which she knew a large amount thanks to the Prophet. Harry had just sat back down after getting himself a tea and a piece of treacle tart.

“Mother has asked me to see Father in Azkaban,” I told them reluctantly.

“You haven’t seen him yet,” Luna said. It wasn’t a question. She knew for a fact.

I nodded and took a sip.

“And you don’t want to see him now, either.”

I shook my head, still hiding my face in my cup.

Harry was scrutinizing me. I could feel his eyes on me and raised my own to meet his. “Hm?”

“I just…” he started. “You always talked about him so much. I thought you adored him.”

I sucked on my bottom lip. “I…” I ran a weary hand through my hair. “I used to. And I still…well. It’s complicated. He…loves me, but he loved the power he thought he could obtain too. And he thought he was doing well by me, getting me involved. But I…” I sighed.

Harry was fiddling with a napkin. Luna was sitting quietly, watching me. When it became apparent I wasn’t going to continue, she prompted me. “But you what?”

I ran my hands through my hair. “Starting in fifth year, whenever I would express doubts in the Dark Lord or his cause, he would tell me he was disappointed in me. Then, if I didn’t apologize immediately, he would say that I didn’t deserve to have our name or a place in our house if I couldn’t see the right way. That I didn’t love him enough to trust his judgment. He would call me selfish and foolish and weak and refuse to talk to me until I reassured him he was right, and then he would act elated. He used to take me to all sorts of Quiddich matches and buy me new robes and books and then everything would be great. And then I would get too complacent and reveal, somehow, that I didn’t wholeheartedly support the Dark Lord, and he would do the same thing all over again.” I curled my legs in close to my chest. As much as I’d talked about my father, I’d never truly _talked_ about my father to very many people. “It was very confusing.” I could feel them staring and it made my face heat up uncomfortably.

“So he manipulated you,” Harry said bluntly.

“He…well,” I began, ruffled by the accusation. “He just didn’t like to be wrong.”

“So he emotionally manipulated you when he was you main role model.” Harry was starting to look rather stormy. “And then verbally abused you, repeatedly, until you agreed that he was right. And then bought you off afterwards.”

“I…” I was distinctly uncomfortable. “I don’t want to talk about it.” My voice had more venom in it than it usually did, talking with Harry. Obviously he struck a chord in me, and I think I had in him, by the way he was acting. But he didn’t know what he was talking about. Making assumptions about my family. It wasn’t abuse. Abuse was something someone did if they didn’t love you, I’d thought. And my father loved me. He did. He tried to do well by me. That’s what he told me.

Startlingly, I felt that pain in my chest, the familiar one that warned me so often now that I was close to tears.

“Draco—”

I couldn’t take that voice anymore, the gentle, sympathetic one, laced with tightly controlled anger just barely held back.“Just _stop talking_!” My face was burning. I stared at my coffee heatedly, as though it was the one talking back to me.

“Harry,” Luna said gently, setting her hand on his. “He doesn’t need this right now.”

I huffed a little, still staring at my coffee cup.

Eventually after a long pause Harry relented. “I’m sorry, Draco.”

“It’s alright,” I said quietly.

He shook his head. “No,” he said, his expression still troubled, but bit off whatever else he was going to add by shoving a forkful of treacle tart into his mouth.

I looked at him for a while as he stubbornly looked away, intent on his food. Luna distracted me.

“I think,” she began, “That you should go when you feel particularly courageous. Because you won’t ever feel ready, but you will feel fed up.” She smiled and I weakly returned the favor. Even reluctantly, I knew her words had truth to them.

“And,” she said, “I would try to see if you can cast a Patronus. You probably won’t be able to bring it with you into the prison, but just having it for a few seconds near me makes me feel better if I think dementors are around.”

“Mm.” The most I’d gotten was vague silvery wisps so far. It seemed like every happy memory I had either wasn’t powerful enough or was overshadowed by something or other.

“You don’t have to go right this second,” she reassured me. “You mother will understand. She must know how difficult this is for you.”

“But she wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important to her.”

“You won’t disappoint her if you take care of yourself,” Luna assured me. “You’ll only worry her more if you try to do something you can’t handle yet and cause yourself unnecessary pain. Alright?”

I thought about it. Luna watched me quietly, waiting to see what I’d say. She knew how badly I took it when I thought I was letting people down, how depressed I got when I failed at something and felt worthless. And she knew my mental health wasn’t the best at that moment.

I nodded once. Just a small nod, but it made her smile.

“There you go,” she said kindly. “How is the plant doing?”

“I put some clippings into my cigarettes, sometimes,” I told her. “It works very well.”

“I’m glad. And how is the lovely kitten doing?”

“She’s hardly a kitten,” I snorted. “I tried to brush out her fur the other day and she nearly mauled me to death. Gave Harry a few scratches, too, for no good reason.”

“She can’t help her species. Moodiness is a part of being feline.”

I shrugged.

“Speaking of moody little creatures,” she said, “I’ve been writing an article on wupplers, I told you a while before that I wanted to start.  They’re really…”

I smiled while I listened to her talk. It was good to just hear her voice and see her face again. In all the turmoil, at least I had her as a constant.


	19. Hot Chocolate

I had tried, and tried, and tried and tried and tried. I just couldn’t do it. Silvery wisps were the only thing I could produce, none of them even vaguely resembling any sort of shape, let alone a fully formed patronus.  
I got frustrated and threw my wand across the room. I wasn’t in the correct mental state to do this—I was exhausted and preoccupied and my thoughts were scattered. Thinking better of my tantrum, I retrieved my wand and decided to curl up and read some more of my book, this time going over a different chapter on nebulas to take my mind off of everything else. I also had other books on complicated theories, like the string theory, but I was working up to it. I needed something lighter or I felt like my brain was going to fizzle out and drain through my ears.  
I hear a knock on my door and dog-eared my page, taking off my glasses to peer up. “Yes?”  
“Want some hot chocolate?” Harry asked from the doorway.  
“Sure,” I smiled. It’d been rainy and cold all day, astonishingly. As though we lived in Britain. I’d been stuck in my room trying to get this stupid charm to work, too embarrassed to ask Harry for help. I hoped he hadn’t heard me swearing.  
I wrapped myself in my blanket and followed him into the kitchen. He already had the water heated, and I watched as he started mixing the cocoa, sugar and milk together in the mugs. I noticed the one Ginny gave him was not one he selected.  
He handed me my mug gingerly so it wouldn’t spill. I held it with my blanket wrapped around my hands so I wouldn’t burn my fingers on the hot ceramic and pulled it in close to my body, blowing on it occasionally to cool it off.  
“How are you feeling today?”  
“Good,” I replied. “I didn’t do much. How was the Ministry?”  
“Hanging on,” he sighed. “Still trying to figure out where these people are centralized. Nobody can get anything on them—they’ve scoured all the main wizarding areas in Paris and found nothing so far.”  
“Have they checked the muggle areas too?”  
“Why would they? If they’re Death Eaters, they’d never associate with them.”  
“No, I know,” I said, chewing my lip. “Trust me. But I don’t think these are just more Death Eaters, you know? I mean, if they were, why would they use muggle technology like guns to storm Paris?”  
“So you think they’re not just attacking the government for protecting Muggles and Muggle-borns? That that's the wrong reason?”  
“I mean, if they really wanted to hurt them, wouldn’t they have attacked them outright?”  
“Maybe they meant to when they tried to use the Imperius Curse on you, before it didn’t work.”  
“I just don’t understand why they would use guns, though. It doesn’t add up.”  
“Well,” Harry stirred his drink, contemplative. “I suppose for those who weren’t all that convinced, maybe? Because to cast a curse you truly have to want it or else it doesn't work.”  
“Or to truly be afraid the consequences of not doing it,” I muttered.  
Harry stared at me for a long second. “Or that. Either way, if there’s not profound enough motivation, they won’t be able to cast it. But you don’t need any of the same sort of emotion behind the action to fire a gun.”  
“Hm.” I sipped my hot chocolate. It made sense. It would still be a long-range weapon. They would hardly have to learn anything new, and if no one had thought to put up protective spells against material objects rather than curses—which they wouldn’t have, before now—they had serious damaging potential. But something was still niggling at the back of my mind.  
“They attacked me to get to you,” I said, thinking aloud. “Which could have been an attack against you because you defeated Voldemort specifically and are a symbol of his opposition…or if it was successful, it could have been to discredit you, because you spoke at my trials…but what if it’s because you’re a figurehead? For the Ministry? Like Shacklebolt is.”  
“Well, yeah. I mean, the governments here and on the continent have all been passing more laws granting freedom to magical creatures and supporting muggle-borns, so—”  
“But wouldn’t they have attacked the fundraiser then?” I asked him. “As a way to show that they hated the new laws giving pure bloods a less prestigious place in society? One where they can't assert themselves over muffles and magical creatures alike, and they'd be attacking directly an event made by a muggle-born witch, after all. It would be perfect, considering Hermione has been in the news so much pushing her reforms.”  
“But then why would they attack Paris?” Harry asked.  
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I try not to read the papers. Most of it is just misery, and it isn't worth making myself anxious and depressed to know what's going on in the world. But I think, maybe—talk to Hermione? She would know a lot about this.”  
“Ron has talked to her,” Harry said. “They’ve been keeping me in the dark. I mean, they admit it, he told me they can’t talk a lot about this entire situation to me because I haven’t taken an Unbreakable Vow, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try to figure it out by myself.”  
“By yourself with me,” I corrected.  
“With you, or course,” he conceded with a smile.  
I curled my toes further into the blanket and took another drink.  
“Are you cold?” he asked. “Do you want a heating charm? Or another blanket?”  
“I could do either one myself if I needed to,” I said.  
“Well, yeah,” Harry said. “You just seemed cold.”  
I shrugged. “Sometimes when I use heating spells too close to my skin it gets itchy.”  
“You said the same thing about protection spells from the sun.”  
“Magic can get itchy,” I scowled. “I have very sensitive skin.”  
“If you say so,” Harry smiled. “I didn’t mean to pick at you. Skinny people just tend to get cold more often.”  
“I’m not skinny. I’m slender. And fine-boned.”  
“Like a bird.”  
“I’m not a bird,” I said curmudgeonly. “I’m a person.”  
“A fine-boned person,” he continued. “I bet I could pick you up.”  
“You certainly couldn’t. I’m taller than you.”  
“You’re definitely not.”  
“I am. It just doesn’t look like it because your hair is uncontrollable.”  
“Even if you are, I bet I still could.”  
“You’re not allowed to try.”  
“Hm,” he said, waving his empty mug to the sink. I drank down some more of mine, realizing it was getting cold and I hadn’t even had half of it yet, lost in thought as I’d been. He walked behind me, presumably to get something, and I thought that was going to be that. But then I felt his arms wrap around my chest, pulling me into his torso back to front. I felt a kiss on the top of my head, and then suddenly missed the warmth of him as he moved away to get a better angle and kiss the side of my neck. I made sure before I let myself relax into the sensations to place my mug on the table for safekeeping, sure that if this continued I would somehow spill it.  
I felt his breath skate across my skin, cold where he’d kissed, electric where he’d touched.“I’m glad you’re in a good mood today.”  
I scoffed. “I’ve been pouting for half this conversation.”  
“But it’s a conversation,” he persisted, his lips brushing the skin just under my ear. “You’re talking.”  
“And you’re talking too much,” I retorted, reaching up to run my fingers through his hair and tug him closer to me.  
His hands moved away from my chest, one of them sliding to my shoulder, the other going gently to my chin and tipping my head back so he could kiss my face, starting at my forehead, trailing down onto my cheekbones and nose, hovering just above my lips for a gentle, chaste kiss.  
I sloughed off my blanket and stood up, turning around to give him a proper kiss. His lips were soft and slid against mine gently, his tongue trailing across mine as our mouths opened. I ran my thumb across his jaw and felt his heart beat under the fabric of his shirt. He pressed me closer to him with a hand on the small of my back, turning his face into my neck and scattering kisses near my collarbone. I bit my lip and ran my fingers through his soft hair, tilting my head back and knowing but not caring that he would leave marks.  
His mouth found a particularly weak spot just under my jaw, sending a shiver down my spine, making me gasp and press closer to him, my fingers tightening in his dark locks. He hummed his appreciation and slowly walked us backwards, taking one step at a time.  
My lips feeling sorely neglected, I tugged on his hair and brought his mouth back to mine. I sucked on his bottom lip, opening my eyes when I finished to see that he was already staring at me, so close I nearly went cross-eyed. The green of his gaze was dark and his expression was more intense than usual, and it was all for me.  
I felt the side of the table press into the small of my back as he kissed me again deeply. I threw a hand out to steady myself and hit my mug, accidentally knocking it over like I knew I would and making a small sound of protest, trying to turn my head around to look. Without pausing, Harry waved a hand to Vanish the mess, still kissing me all the while.  
“Show-off,” I murmured against his lips. I felt his turn upwards in a smile.  
The table at my back becoming uncomfortable, I held Harry away gently with a hand splayed on his chest, reluctant to stop touching him. I hopped up onto the table and pulled him in between my legs, looping my arms around his neck and leaning in to kiss him once more. I felt his hands slide under my sweater tentatively before retracting, unsure to go further but wanting to very much.  
I smiled and reached behind myself, finding his hand and putting it squarely on my back. His fingers trailed over my spine and across my shoulder blades while I kissed the sensitive skin under Harry’s jaw, delighting in every little breathless noise he made.  
I trailed kisses further along his neck and figured it really was quite unfair that, what with his darker completion, the bruise I could practically feel forming would be much starker than his. So it was only natural, when I reached the less sensitive, more muscled area, to give him a bite.  
He made a noise in the back of his throat and pulled away, one hand on my cheek. I smirked.  
“Scared, Potter?” I asked softly, teasing.  
“Of course you’d bite,” he said incredulously, a small grin playing on his lips.  
My smirk turned into a smile and I carded my fingers through his hair, my kiss-addled brain too sluggish to think of any good comeback.  
“Is it alright if I…?” Harry asked, tugging on my sweater to signify taking it off. Lost in the sensations and eager for more, I yanked it off myself, making a mess of my hair in the process. He didn’t even stop to look at my scars, for which I was immensely grateful. He just pulled me closer into him and kissed me languidly, slower than before but with just as much heat. I wrapped a leg around him, keeping him close, my fingers trailing through the wispy hairs towards the back of his neck.  
My breath hitched as his hands moved under my arse, kissing down to my shoulder. He didn’t bite.  
I was quite enjoying it, truth be told, until he picked me up. I made an unfortunately undignified sound and clutched his shoulders, my arms wrapped around his neck tightly and my free leg coming up to cross the other one at the ankle, bumping his hip in a way that must have been painful. He didn’t seem to notice, laughing gently in my ear.  
“I told you I could,” he said, his breathing still fast.  
“Yes, well—” I cut off when he jolted me a bit to move one arm more securely under me and around my back. “Don’t do that!” I said indignantly as he started to walk.  
“The couch is more comfortable,” he explained.  
“My legs are perfectly functional.” I was really a bit annoyed that I was wrong. Though of course, not enough to actually do anything about it.  
“Mm, yes, but this way we stay close.”  
“I bet you can’t even see where we’re going.”  
“I know where the couch is.”  
My cheek was pressed against his, but the more I got used to the feel of being carried the more relaxed I got, and so I managed to move myself enough that we were nose to nose and kiss him. It was messy and our teeth clinked together but it was better than the rest of them, Harry’s chest flush against mine, my legs around his hips. I could feel, now, exactly what I was doing to him, and I felt the same.  
Stumbling to the couch and depositing me more gently than I would have thought, my fingers sought out the hem of Harry’s shirt and tugged upwards. He made short work of it, flung across the room, coming dangerously close to contact Aunt Wallaburga’s curtains.  
My hands danced across his bare torso, reveling in the feel of him. No thoughts, just movement. Perfection.  
Harry made a low noise in the back of his throat as my fingers skimmed his erection through his trousers. Wanting to hear him again, I took him into my palm, but to my surprise instead of the little sound of pleasure I heard—“Wait.”  
I recoiled immediately, searching his face, self-conscious and afraid I’d done something wrong. Perhaps I'd read everything incorrectly., though the logical part of my brain scoffed at that notion. He looked terribly conflicted, and though I could still see desire in his expression, I also saw hesitance and something else, too.  
“I’ve, uh,” he started, his already flushed cheeks getting even redder. “I’ve never…” he scratched his head, looking at me beseechingly.  
“Never done anything with a man?” I asked gently.  
“Well.” A small, self-deprecating laugh escaped his lips. “Nothing with anyone, actually.”  
I cocked my head, my desire momentarily forgotten. “Not even with the girl Weasley?”  
“Like I said, it never felt right.”  
“Oh.”  
“But that doesn’t…Do you—I’d still like to, um, continue though. If you want. I just thought I should tell you.”  
I smiled. “I do still very much want to continue. And thank you for telling me, Harry.”  
He nodded, biting his lip, which of course I just had to kiss then.  
I moved slowly so he wouldn’t get surprised or self-conscious again. The information had surprised me at first, but then, it really shouldn’t have. Harry didn’t seem like the type of person to have casual hook-ups. He was too intense. Which gave me just a little insight on our relationship, if he and Ginny hadn’t even done much.  
He continued making those lovely noises when I moved one hand from his hip to palm his erection, turning into a breathy little moan when I undid his trousers and took him in my hand. Our kisses became sloppy as he started breathing harder, one hand tangled in my hair, pulling me ever closer, the other one skimming my belt buckle. I took his wrist in my free hand and put it back on my arse, and did it again once he started drifting, twisting my loose fist around his erection firmly. I pressed kisses across his collarbone. I had wanted to taste him that night, but I didn’t think, somehow, he’d last quite that long.  
“Draco, you—” Harry said between breaths. “I’m not—”  
I shushed him, giving him another nip and another little twist of my wrist. My rhythm sped up a bit, his fingers digging into my back.  
“I’m going to—” he tugged my hair again, bringing my face back up to his. “I’m—”  
“Yes, do it.” I kissed him, sucking on his bottom lip. “Come now.”  
One, two, three more firm strokes and he was shuddering, his head thrown back, clutching me to him and calling out my name, white spilling over my fingers. I slowly brought him back down as he returned to himself, rhythm quelling with his movements, my touch light.  
Once he regained control of himself he kissed me deeply and sweetly, his hand smoothing back the hair he’d ruffled and, after vanishing the mess, shifting his arm so it was a heavy, pleasant weight around my waist.  
“It was good, then?” I hummed contentedly against his lips.  
“Amazing.”  
“Mm, naturally.”  
He grinned and dotted little kisses over my forehead, down my nose, and across the rest of my face.  
“Do you want me to…?” he asked, his fingers sliding cautiously towards my belt buckle again, drawing attention to my still very visible arousal.  
Did I? Yes, I did. I did very much. But I thought of a few mortifying instances with some of the Muggles I’d fooled around with where things hadn’t exactly panned out the way either of us had been expecting, and for some reason or another, I had this sort of mental block and just couldn’t come. I hoped it was just because it was a one night stand, because it was a stranger, because the whole time I’d been thinking about this muddy and undefined imaginary figure with glasses and green eyes and messy hair while someone else knelt in front of me on the sticky floor of a club’s bathroom. So even though I very much wanted Harry, so much that it hurt, I was reluctant to put myself or him through that sort of pressure just yet.  
“This is good,” I told him, my thumb running across his cheekbone and kissing him softly, slowly. “This is enough for now.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	20. Azkaban

I still didn’t quite have the potion right. I hadn’t found a way to sneak one of Harry’s fingernails off of him. So, rather than putting myself through another trial trying to scheme my way out of this conundrum, I decided to do something I didn’t normally consider and simply asked for what I wanted.  
“You need a what?” Harry asked, incredulous over his mug of tea.  
“A fingernail,” I repeated. “For the potion I’m making.”  
“Does it have to be mine, specifically?”  
“Well,” I considered. “No. But I was going to try it out on myself, so it can’t be mine. And you’re convenient.”  
“But are you going to turn yourself into me?”  
“No,” I explained. “I have some of Pansy’s hair. And I want to retain my own eye color, so just to be safe I have a few tears in a vial, in case the default would be to shift them to a color resembling yours or Pansy’s. I’m going to make numerous different batches, some with them and some without, just to make sure I can change certain aspects without changing others. So I need a bit of your fingernail.”  
“Ah,” he said. “Good to know I’m part of your experiment.”  
“Well, I’ll be the one drinking the potion.”  
“Have you tried to make it before?”  
“Yes, once.”  
“And?”  
“It exploded.”  
“It exploded and you’re going to drink it?”  
“Well, not the one that combusted,” I said, a little put out. “Besides, Snape would make Trevor drink the foul creations Lonbottom used to make, and he survived.”  
“You’re much more important than a toad.”  
“High praise, that.”  
He summoned a pair of clippers and cut off a little piece, which I scooted into a vial before disappearing back up the stairs.  
“Not a thank you?” he called to me.  
“I’m very important!” I called back. “No time for niceties!”  
I couldn’t wait to try again. I knew for certain that this time I would get it right. If not this one, the next.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“If this…If the potion you’re making succeeds, will you use it?”  
The question was sudden, breaking the silence between the two of us. Like most evenings we’d taken up in front of the fire. I’d been dozing with the sentient heater that was Etty on my lap—I hadn’t been getting much sleep at night, because for some reason that was the time I had the most inspiration and motivation. And the most reason to try to occupy myself, because I’d been taking far too much Dreamless Sleep in an attempt to stop the nightmares about Harry telling me Mum was dead and no one would let me see her. I could afford to sleep in late or not sleep at all, because it wasn’t like I had anywhere important to be—I became an even more staid shut-in than I was before after everything. However, the potion was unfortunately beginning to both not work as effectively and put me in a sort of foggy state for the entire day afterwards due to my ridiculous levels of consumption, so I was forcing myself to cut back.  
“To be someone else?” I slurred groggily, my tongue thick and my teeth feeling vaguely fuzzy from leaving my mouth ajar for too long. “’F course I’d be someone else.”  
“Why?”  
I peered at him through half-lidded eyes. “People still throw things at me. It might be because they’re not used to me, but I don’t want to get used to them, so I stay away. I’d like to walk down the street without ruining my clothes—I have an excellent wardrobe that deserves to be worn more than once.” That was the easy answer, and I knew it, but I didn’t feel like going any deeper, and especially not with Harry. If I ever wanted to talk about my issues with myself, my scars, my Mark, I thought it would probably be with Luna because she was less harsh than Pans and less guilty than Harry, but that was still very far off.  
“Oh. But you can’t get that with Win?”  
I sighed. “I can’t. He wasn’t my idea.”  
“But taking a different person’s face, one who you decided, would be fine?”  
“I wouldn’t be taking anyone’s face,” I explained a bit exasperatedly, realizing I’d never actually talked about it to him—it was one of those fragile things I didn’t want to burden with too many words, but now that I felt I was getting somewhere, it was okay to talk about, just a little. “I’d be making a new one. Like a puzzle. One person’s nose shape, another person’s eye color, another person’s hair—that way the drinker still gets to retain their body if they want to, though I’m sure I can figure out a way to change that, too, if they want. And if I used it I wouldn’t feel that odd sense of shame I always get while masquerading as Win, feeling like I’m taking advantage of the real one somehow, even though I’ve never met him.”  
Harry mulled that over and seemed to understand a bit of what I told him. “I think it would be useful for the Aurors to have. Espionage and whatnot.”  
I nodded. “I think so too. I’d be willing to give it to them, once it’s done. For a fee,” I specified. “And a patent. Merlin knows, the Ministry is so corrupt, I’d need volumes upon volumes to make sure nothing happened.”  
“Mm.” Harry stared at the fire, contemplative. “But you wouldn’t be able to use this soon, since Win and I have already been photographed together and everything.”  
I shrugged. “You could tell the media you and him were just friends.”  
He raised an eyebrow. “Those photographs say something very different.”  
“Mm.” I sighed. “I don’t like being Win.”  
“I know,” Harry said. “But it might be best. The Ministry is doing what they can. They’re using Polyjuice right now I bet. In a flask, like what Crouch did.”  
“I should see about the longevity of mine,” I muttered, making a mental note. That would make things much easier for the user. Maybe some sort of infusion of oak, perhaps? Certainly some sort of tree would give it the necessary properties, it was only a matter of finding which kind would not react with the necessary agents already in it…  
“If we did create a story within which you could use your potion, when you finish it…” Harry drifted off, dragging me away from my thoughts. He had that expression, the one where I knew he was choosing his words carefully, trying not to offend me. It was something he’d gotten much better at in the past few months than in any of the years before. The arm he had around my shoulders drew me in a little tighter and I shifted closer unconsciously, mindful of Etty. “You would only use it for that, right? You wouldn’t use it to do something reckless.”  
I scrutinized him, arching an eyebrow. “Of course I wouldn’t. I’m not you.”  
Harry scoffed. “You know what I mean. You wouldn’t—you wouldn’t go looking for them?” Harry’s voice had a strange inflection in it, and his face briefly twisted into a grimace, his eyebrows drawing together quickly and his mouth a taut line.  
“What is it?” I asked. “What’s the face for?”  
He raked a hand over his face. “Nothing,” he muttered. “I just reminded myself of something someone said to me once.”  
“Who was it?” I asked, curious. “Dumbledore?” Everyone knew how close the two of them were. He was in and out of his office at least once a month in fifth year.  
“No,” he said with a wry half-smile. “It was Arthur, actually. Arthur Weasley.”  
My other eyebrow rose to join the first. “And did you go looking?”  
“Well—yes. But it was—complicated."  
“Alright.” Harry had so many difficult memories tied to the strangest of things. I could tell this was one of them, so I waited for him to speak despite my curiosity.  
“…You won’t, though, right?” His voice was rough, and his face stayed turned decidedly to the fire.  
I sighed. “I’m not brave like you are, Harry,” I said, picking at a thread in the blanket. “I’m not inclined to go hunting down dangerous individuals who seem intent on hurting my family. Mother has an entire army outside her door. And nobody is breaking into Azkaban anytime soon.” I hesitated, struck by a thought. “Is there any security detail on Andromeda and Teddy?”  
Harry nodded. “There have been Aurors stationed outside their house since the Ministry in Paris was attacked, and eyes on both of them when they go to work and school.”  
I nodded. I’d never met either of them, but it was important. Teddy was just a little boy. And Andromeda seemed kind, from what Harry had told me. They didn’t deserve any more tragedy that what they’d already dealt with.  
“Most of it wasn’t bravery,” he said softly.  
“Hm?”  
“I was always afraid and on edge,” he admitted, still quiet. “It made me reckless and gave me a short fuse. I wasn’t brave, I was either terrified or fed up.”  
“But you still did things,” I argued. “Good things. You didn’t let the fear eat you like I did. Trust me, Potter, in this argument you’re not going to win.”  
“But—”  
“Shush, Harry. Please.”  
He opened his mouth like he was thinking of saying something, but thought again and, wisely, shut it. I rested my head on his shoulder, tired once more. The fire was so deliciously warm, and the crackle of it alongside Etty purring gently on my lap and Harry’s steady breathing was a lovely lullaby.  
“Please say you won’t,” he said softly, his voice thick, his hand running gently over my hair. “Just a definite answer. It’s important to me that you won’t.”  
I blinked slowly and thought. During Hogwarts I’d so often gone back on my word, promises meant nothing to me in the face of survival. I learned how to lead someone to a conclusion without actually giving out any real information. I learned how to manipulate. But after the war I tried to change that, alongside everything else. I figured if I was going to become an entirely different person anyway, then was the time.  
Was I inclined to go looking for anyone dangerous right then? No. I had more than my fill of danger during the war, no matter whether they were targeting my family or the Ministries on whole. And I was certainly not going to fight for any sort of abstract cause—I valued my life over my beliefs. It was much easier to run away, to hide, to let someone else fight, and no one expected me to want to. Despite how well reverse psychology worked on me as a child, I knew I wasn’t fit for it anymore, even if being constantly under watch was frustratingly patronizing and overwhelming. I thought about my boggart. I thought about all my ticks to keep me calm, my counting, my tapping. How I used books and learning as a way to escape, how I clung to routine for security and how adrift I felt without it. Whatever strength or desperation propelled me through the war was completely depleted, destroyed by frayed nerves and nightmares and anxiety attacks and PTSD, and I did not need more fodder with which to torture myself. I had thought I was tough, but I just wasn’t, not in the way you needed to be to wage war.  
“I’m done fighting,” I said. “I make all the wrong decisions. I’m not going to go looking for anyone.”  
“Promise?”  
“I promise.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I didn’t have a Patronus, but it didn’t matter. If I was never going to be ready now was as good a time as any.  
I didn’t sleep at all the night before. I was too worried. The best I got was a doze for thirty minutes, and for the rest of the night I stared at the shadows curling across my ceiling until my eyes watered.  
I debated, in the early morning light, how far I was willing to bring Harry. I knew he had to come—I was grateful, at least, that that decision was not my own. Because weak as I was, my pride could only be bent so far. I would never have had the strength to be vulnerable enough to ask.  
I would go to the Ministry with him, but the prison without. That was what I finally decided. I didn’t want him there because I didn’t want to feel the need to restrict my emotions or my reactions. Even though I knew his presence would be reassuring, that stubborn bit of pride tripped me again.  
I wanted to be stoic for him. Was that bravery? Going to face what I dreaded so much without him? Or was it cowardice, because I wanted to hide myself, my emotions and my family from him when they were at their messiest? Would it be braver to let him see the most tender and vulnerable parts of my damaged life, or would it be braver to face the ruin of my father alone?  
I spent hours thinking, and by the time I got up to make tea, my mind was cloudy with unresolved questions. I refused to drink the caffeine I desperately needed, knowing I would be jittery and on-edge even without it where I was going.  
I carried a mug to Harry’s room, each step on the stairs giving me a more profound feeling of walking into a trap I could not escape. I still didn’t have to see him—I could put it off; I didn’t have to wake Harry up; we could all go back to sleep and we could forget this and I could just lie to my mother about how normal Father was. Except I couldn’t.  
I had to get this done now. Now, or not at all.  
For all his flaws, he was my father. He deserved at least that I see him. He deserved that much.  
I took a deep breath and knocked on Harry’s door, listening for the sound of shifting blankets. When I heard nothing, I knocked again, eliciting a groan from the other side of the door.  
I smiled. Cracking the door open, I slipped myself halfway through, mug of tea held at chest-level like some sort of peace offering.  
“What time even is it?” Harry mumbled blearily, rubbing his puffy eyes with one hand and searching through the blankets for his glasses with the other.  
I realized I’d never seen the inside of Harry’s room before. I knew when we first moved in that this wasn’t truly his room, but it had been many weeks since then, and it was obvious Harry had put in effort to make the space comfortable for himself.  
The bed was piled high with quilts and pillows, many of them looking worn and well-used, but cozy. The early morning sun faintly shone through the blinds, illuminating the pile of Quidditch gear he kept in the corner. His clothes were strewn all around the floor, but it seemed as though the vast majority of his wardrobe was piled atop his desk chair.  
The desk itself was covered in all sorts of odds and ends, including a globe, two different pairs of glasses, five empty mugs, and many multicolored quills and pens strewn together in no order whatsoever. A terrible Chudley Cannons poster was tacked above the mess, figures whizzing through the air in robes of an offensive shade of orange.  
His room was chaotic but inviting and I couldn’t help comparing it to my stiff and impersonal bedroom in the Manor and my sparse, Spartan bedroom in the Muggle flat. Even in this house, my own bedroom with cauldrons stacked in the corner and Etty sprawling on the windowsill didn’t give off the same warm, lived-in feeling. A part of me itched to organize it, disliking that nothing seemed to be in order—but it wasn’t my space, it was Harry’s, and he could do with it what he wanted.  
“Draco?”Harry asked, more alert now. “What is it?”  
He was sitting up, his glasses on finally, cheek creased from the pillow and nightshirt rumpled, his hair stuck to his head on one side and defying gravity on the other. I waved the cup. “I brought you tea.”  
“I can see that,” he said, reaching for it. “But why at five thirty in the morning?”  
“I’d like to see my father today.”  
“Ah.” He blew on his drink. “Alright. Right now?”  
“In about half an hour or so,” I said, surprised. I’d steeled myself for questions. But Harry certainly wasn’t Pansy, or Luna, or any of the other people I’d gotten used to. From the grim expression on his face and the way he immediately started dressing, I think he understood that my courage was fleeting, and it was best to do the frightful deed now and get it done with before it left me. I wondered if he’d ever felt like that himself—it was so difficult to picture, so incongruous with the image of the unshakeable savior, warrior-like and ever confident that had so often flooded the news since the war ended. But he must have felt like this, like he was barely hanging on to bravery, like it was a gust of wind propelling you forward and if you paused to consider it, it would leave you behind.  
He walked out into the hallway, pausing only to finish off his mug. He set it on the banister absentmindedly, making a mess as he did when he was preoccupied. I didn’t say anything about it but sent it soaring to the kitchen with a flick of my wand—it made me feel better knowing that, at least here, everything was in order.  
He tossed me my coat and pulled on his. Before he opened the door he turned to me.  
“Ready?”  
“No,” I replied. “But get on with it anyway.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything was much too slow and much too fast all at once.  
I left Harry at the Ministry, my heart in my throat. I wanted to bring him, I wanted to so badly, I felt like I was going to break apart without his reassuring presence nearby knowing I was going to have to face those things that had been in my nightmares so many times since the Carrows took over Hogwarts, knowing I was going to see a man I hadn’t seen in more than four years, knowing he would be different than I remembered and terrified of what I would find. But he couldn’t go. I couldn’t let him go. I didn’t want him to see this. I didn’t want him to see me.  
For all I sloughed off my past, I could never shake my pride, beaten though it may have been.  
When I felt panic start to creep up my neck and form a lump in my throat I thought of his hands. I thought of the feeling of them in mine. I thought of the scars on them, rough and broad. I counted those scars in my mind’s eye. I thought of the green of his eyes, the warmth in them, the way they became almost hazel around his pupils, the little dot of brown marking his left iris. It’s what got me through the first gate, past the sentries demanding ID from me and performing perfunctory scanning spells on Shacklebolt, one of the only people with enough clearance to be admitted into the high-security unit, and one of the only people with clearance to accompany such an at-risk visitor.  
I chewed the inside of my cheek and counted my footsteps as I walked down the corridors, trying to ignore the chill running up my arms and down my spine, the hair-raising atmosphere of fear and hatred and sadness, the unintelligible screams coming from an unidentified cell. Dementors were nowhere to be seen, temporarily cleared away so we could enter without fear of being attacked, but I could still sense them. They were close. They were very, very close.  
His hands. Think of his hands.  
One, two, three  
Quatre cinq six  
Sept huit neuf dix onze douze treize quatorze quinze seize dix-sept dix-huit dix-neuf vingt—  
We stopped abruptly. Absorbed in my counting, I had to stop myself short before I barreled into Shacklebolt’s large frame.  
He waved his wand and obtained clearance through one, two, three wards. Then the door started unlocking. The big lock, right in the center of the door. Then the second one, smaller, just above it. And the third, fourth, and fifth on the sides of the doors. And then it opened. And then I saw him.  
He was in chains.  
Shackled by the wrists and ankles, heavy iron supported by more spells.  
His hair was lank and greasy. His skin was sallow. His clothes were dirty.  
He looked nothing like the man I remembered. The man I remembered was angry and scornful and spiteful from losing the war, from comprehending that he had made a terrible, terrible mistake and ruined the family name he’d tried so earnestly to uphold. But he was also proud and strong and dignified. He stood tall with his chin up even under the highest of accusations.  
He was lucky. He was very lucky. My mother and I, we got off easily because Harry spoke for us. I think just having that, even if he didn’t speak for him, helped his case. He could have ended up dead. That’s what happened to many Death Eaters in Ministry care those days, all of which were passed off as suicides with “no further investigation needed”. Of course everyone knew better. Of course it was murder. But who really would try to save a murderer from the same fate he led others to?  
His eyes were a washed out grey when he squinted at me, looking so much more faded because of the purple bruise-like bags underneath them. He raised his hand against the meager light of the lantern propped on the wall behind me. His cell had no windows. He had been in the dark. He had been in the dark, shackled hand and foot, dirty, alone, for I didn’t know how long.  
“Father?” I whispered around the painful lump in my throat, feeling at that moment very small, very afraid, and very appalled.  
He took a long time to answer, and when he did, the words sounded painful. I didn’t know when he had last spoken to someone face to face. I didn’t know when he had last seen someone at all.  
“Son.”  
“Dad, I—” My voice cracked, betraying the emotion I was trying to hide. I bit my knuckle and tried to stop it.  
He just kept staring.  
His eyes, they weren’t just faded, they were vacant. Devoid of emotion—devoid of anything. I would have taken even fury over this. I knew how to deal with him when he was upset. I didn’t know how to deal with this. Nothing had trained me for this.  
“Mother is well,” I said to a crack in the wall above him, unable to look down. I needed to get this over with. I needed to leave. I needed to leave. “She’s happy in France. Everything is fine. I live in the Black family house. With a cat.” I probably could have also said with Harry Potter and he wouldn’t have reacted. His stare was glass, a dead fish.  
I couldn’t—I couldn’t—  
I whirled away from the doorway. 

I ran exactly four steps down the hall before I threw up.


	21. Andromeda and Teddy

“I’m fine,” I said for the twelfth time.

I found out the hard way that Healers were stationed en route between Azkaban and the Ministry for people like me. I was escorted back by Shacklebolt and two of them, just in case I threw up once more or, the horror, actually _fainted_.

If I didn’t already want the earth to swallow me whole, seeing the troubled expression on Harry’s face when I returned certainly did. And he was proving very difficult to reassure.

“I didn’t want you to come with me,” I told him. “The only reason you even accompanied me to the Ministry is because you have to. If it wasn’t part of your job, I wouldn’t have woken you.”

“I’m glad you woke me, though.” He paused, searching for the words. I flitted around the kitchen to take my mind off of what I’d just seen, fixing some calming tea for Harry and I. I think the idea of dementors bothered him deeply, though neither of us saw them. The way he fidgeted when he was nervous, tugging his hair and whatnot, I figured he could use some tea as well. I could bring down the Jasmine plant, help dispel the wrakspurts in our ears—or were they nargles? Of flubbering kipwaps or whatever she’d been on about. 

I remembered my idiotic stunt back in third year as a fake dementor and snorted. I certainly hadn’t been expecting a full-blown Patronus to come charging at me. Not that I didn’t deserve it, floundering idiot that I was.

“I know you can defend yourself,” Harry said cautiously. “You’re a powerful wizard in your own right—I’m not disrespecting that, you’re amazing at potions and Occlumency somehow comes naturally to you. And I get that you need to do some things yourself. But it’s difficult for me—with people that I…care about, it’s difficult to see them put themselves in dangerous situations, and I know Kingsley was there and he’s certainly better than me in a crisis now, but I just—that’s why I keep asking, I’m sorry. Ginny got—”

“Annoyed, yes, I know,” I interrupted bluntly. Even after bringing her up, the glow from his flattery made me warm. He'd caught on to my particular weakness for it. “You do realize that up until quite recently _you_ were the one in dangerous situations most often?”

“Yes,” Harry admitted with a sheepish grin. “It’s why I’m horrendous at sitting still and waiting.”

I kissed him on the cheek and got our tea. “It’s alright. Besides, you’re incredibly correct,” I preened. “I _am_ brilliant. And powerful. And gorgeous. Really, you’re lucky to have me.”

“Yes,” he agreed earnestly, green eyes set on my own.

After months with him, I’d been getting used to the way he talked about such things, but the way he so honestly admitted his thoughts and feelings was still something I never expected. Mother and I loved each other, but we were always stilted and formal—Father was always quite distant, Crabbe and Goyle had the combined intellect of a moldy piece of cheese, and Pans and I would never admit actual _feelings_ for fear of relentless teasing. The worst thing in the world was to be likened to a—dare I say— _Hufflepuff_.

I couldn’t help the horrendous sappy smile that obscured my features. I bit my lip to try to contain it and found it oddly difficult to look at him for a few seconds. It was one thing to compliment myself under a façade of confidence, but it was quite another to hear them confirmed.

“Did you know even your forehead goes red when you blush?” Harry asked me teasingly. “And the tips of your ears, too.”

“Stop,” I said firmly, managing to look at him again, though the smile was still on my face.

“Really, even your neck is red. You’re worse than Ron.”

“ _Stop_.”

“No wonder you wear so much sunscreen,” he continued. “Red really isn’t your color. You could never have lived in Gryffindor, I doubt even you could have pulled off the fashion statement.”

“I look dashing in red,” I argued. “Of finely tailored silk, preferably. Or expensive wool.”

“You’re ridiculous,” he grinned.

“Mm.” I sighed. “I think I’m going to go take a bath.” I felt like I was carrying the filth of Azkaban with me, the grit of sadness and desperation and emptiness.

“Alright. Hey, and Draco?”

“Yes?”

“If, uh,” he scratched his head. Nervous tick. “If you’d like to come, I was thinking of seeing Teddy again. If you’re up to it. I thought it might be good to…he’s a really sweet kid, he always cheers me up. If you want to, that is.”

I considered it, leaning against the doorway, fiddling with the end of my sleeve. If Harry were to leave and I were to stay here all on my own, I’d just brood for the day over my father, and no amount of vanilla-scented candles or lavender soap would make me feel better. I knew that most of this conversation, his compliments and incessant teasing, were probably just attempts by him to distract me from perseverating over Father. And I wanted—needed—some time to process, yes, but I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. Not yet, while the memories were still so unbearably fresh.

However, I didn’t want to be a burden for Harry if I went and then couldn’t create the right mindset for myself after all. Because this was much more than a routine babysitting job, this was reconnecting with family my mother had ostracized longer than I’d been alive. But, considering the pressure my mother and I were under, it seemed like a good decision to try to befriend them. Make allies where you can. Especially if my hunch was correct and my family wasn’t the actual target—I had a feeling we were somehow part of something bigger again. 

That is, if they would take me. Teddy was just a kid, only four years old, so he would like anyone who showed up and played with his toy trains with him, or whatever it was he liked. But Andromeda had lived through two wars. She knew precisely where my mother had stood, and my mother made sure, on the rare occasions she did talk about her banished sister, that I understood just what she believed too. But they were close when they were children, I knew that. Undergoing a childhood with Aunt Bella had to form some sort of camaraderie between the victimized parties.

It would take a lot of effort. It would be awkward. It would be tiring. There would most likely be apologizing involved.

I thought of my father’s dead eyes.

“I’ll go.”

“Really?” Harry asked, a small smile spreading on his face.

I nodded, sucking on my lower lip, unable to replicate the same expression of exuberance. “After my bath.”

“That’s wonderful, Draco!” He pulled me into a sudden hug, one which I’d seen coming and steeled myself for so I wouldn’t fall over. “They’re going to love you.”

“We’ll see,” I mumbled reservedly.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I slowly walked down the stairs, rubbing my left forearm under my shirtsleeve worriedly.

 _I shouldn’t go_ , I thought. _She doesn’t want to see me. I was a Death Eater. Her daughter and son-in-law were killed in the Battle. She doesn’t want me spending time with her grandchild. Of course she doesn’t. It’s all my fault. I should just tell Harry I can’t, I’m too distraught from seeing Father, I just can’t leave._

I knew somehow, though, that if I told Harry that, he probably wouldn’t go see Teddy. And I wanted him to see Teddy. I didn’t want him to sit in the house and mope all day, even if it was a considerably nicer house now that it had been when we moved in. He deserved better than that. I’d already asked him to accompany me to _Azkaban_ today, the literal worst place in the entire wizarding world. I could do this for him.

I brushed my bangs in front of my face and caught a whiff of vanilla and lavender, the scents Mum used to wear before things got bad. It reminded me of long walks through the woods on the Manor grounds, of her sneaking me bites of the “good” chocolate, of tight hugs when I had nightmares or when Father was away or ignoring me too long. It reminded me of why I’d gone to see him in the first place.

I was wearing those ridiculous socks, too, the ones Luna gave me. And I’d rubbed a little bit of that sparkly moisturizer on my hands that Pansy had unknowingly given to me. I put it on the inside of my left forearm, too, so that way if I felt compelled to glance down at it the way I did when I could feel people judge me, I would see the sparkles and refrain from scratching until I bled. I only did that when my ticks were really bad, right after the war ended, and the more I extricated myself from the magical world the less I did it. But I didn’t know what I’d do here. I didn’t even know Andromeda and Teddy, but it was already important to me that they like me.

I had a little souvenir from every important person, a little good-luck charm, my way of reminding myself that even if this all went to shit I had people who cared about me. I probably should have done this as a way to calm myself down before I went to Azkaban, but I’d wanted it over with so fast, I hadn’t given myself time to really think. I still felt some residual anxiety, and I could tell by the tightness in my shoulders that when I had the capacity to re-examine my memories and my feelings about those memories I’d have a lot to work through, all that mixed with the nervousness of my impending meeting, so I did what I could to calm myself. I reminded myself of all the good things I had. I had food. I had clean water, hot water. I had good clothes. A bed. Security. That was already more than I’d had throughout many important points in my life. And I had a cat who only occasionally bit me, and a beautiful mother who was safe, and I had Pansy, and I had Luna.

And, of course, I had Harry.

He met me at the bottom of the stairs with another smile and enfolded me in a hug.

What sort of past life had I lead to deserve Harry?

“They’re going to love you,” he promised me again. “I’m so happy you’re doing this. He’ll be so excited to see you. I’ve already talked about you, so he knows who you are.”

“He does?” I asked. “And…Andromeda knows I’m coming?”

He nodded, pushing my hair off my forehead and running his hands through it. “I firecalled her. She’s happy to have you over.”

“Mm,” I grunted noncommittally, worrying my bottom lip once again.

“It’ll be good, Draco,” he said confidently.

I wished I shared his assuredness.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I stared in amazement as Teddy’s hair changed from a muddy brown color to my own platinum blonde.

“This is Draco?” he asked, holding Harry’s pant leg with one hand and clutching a stuffed animal with the other.

“Yes, this is Draco,” Harry assured him. “He’s your cousin, and he’s very excited to see you. He’s kind of shy, though,” he mock-whispered conspiratorially, winking at me and crouching down to get face-to-face with the little boy, “so don’t mind him if he doesn’t talk much right away, it just means he really wants to be friends.”

“Am I his cousin?” I asked Harry, confused. “I’m his mother’s cousin, so I don’t really know what that makes me to him. His second cousin? His second uncle?”

“Shh, don’t think about it too much,” Harry said. “You’ll confuse him. You’re cousins.”

I shrugged. I still thought I was his second uncle, but alright. Whatever Harry wanted.

“I’m Teddy,” the little boy declared, sticking out his grubby little hand for me to shake. It was sticky and small in my own. I hoped it was juice as I tried to wipe the feeling away on my jeans.

“Do you like trains?”

“Ah,” I said, taken aback by his sudden unrelated question. “I suppose so. The Hogwarts Express is very nice. The Underground is rather crowded, though.”

“I like trains. Want to see my set?”

“If your grandmother wouldn’t mind, sure.”

Teddy and Harry both walked into the front room, though I lingered in the doorway hesitantly. Teddy doubled back and pulled on my pant leg. “The trains aren’t out there. They’re in my room.”

“Ah, I—” I paused when I saw Andromeda walk in, oven mitts on and hair up in a bun. Though all three sisters had similar facial features, pointed nose and small chin and thin, angular eyebrows, Andromeda resembled in coloring Bellatrix much more than my mother. It gave me a bit of a fright, to be truthful, thinking I saw my many-times torturer amble about a homey cottage with oven mitts. I believed at first I’d experienced some sort of break, seeing Aunt Bella revived from the dead after taking her own life in Azkaban.

“Draco, then,” she said, a strange mix of compassion and formality in her voice. “It’s good to finally meet you.”

Bella would never speak to me like that, I reminded myself. And Andromeda had the same eyes as my mother—a bit sad but intelligent and warm, and completely sane. I swallowed a knot in my throat. “It’s nice to meet you too,” I replied, meaning it.

“Come in, then. We’ll catch our deaths letting the cold air in. Harry, love, how have you been?” she asked, giving him a peck on the cheek.

“I’ve been well,” he said with a smile. “You?”

“Oh, the same. It’s been much easier with you helping out, though.”

I felt Teddy tug insistently at my pant leg. “I’m going to bring Draco to see the trains,” he told his grandmother.

She scrutinized me. The smart woman, so much like my mother, I think she realized that I was unused to small children, and the thought of being alone with him put me under quite a lot of pressure. “Do you think Harry would like to see them, too?”

“Harry has _already_ seen them!”

“But I would love to see them again,” Harry interjected.

The little boy thought about it, screwing up his face. His hair changed from platinum blonde to lime green in thought. “Okay!”

I shot Harry a grateful look as Teddy led me up the stairs. I glanced behind my shoulder at Andromeda, who was watching me carefully as though she didn’t quite know what to do with me. I didn’t quite know what to do with her, either.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Teddy loved trains. He told me more about the specific type of train the Hogwarts Express in a thirty minute span then I’d ever known before. He steadfastly declared that he would be a conductor when he was grown, and he would be the best one there ever was.

“I don’t doubt it,” I said, cross-legged on the floor next to him and surrounded by miniature tracks. “You’ll be fantastic.”

He grinned at me, his hair turning a bright, sunny yellow. “Yeah!”

Once he was done with trains, he explained airplanes to me. I asked him if he’d ever seen a rocket before, and tried to explain to him the basic requirements for a successful space shuttle. His eyes went wide and he made all the right sounds at all the right times, reaching to the sky and exclaiming when I finished, “I’m gonna be an aeronaut when I’m older!”

“Astronaut, actually,” I corrected. “You were close though.”

I never did like children, but I was quite taken with this one.

Harry sat in a chair off to the side, watching the two of us with a smile on his face.

Andromeda appeared in the doorway after some time, Harry noticing first, because I had my back mostly to the door. He paused to ruffle Teddy’s hair before leaving the room to join her at her beckoning. I strained my ears and tried to hear their conversation, but was unsuccessful, and reluctant to perform any magic in front of Teddy just yet when I was still on such uncertain ground, and so we continued playing airplanes and trains, trying my hardest to act like I wasn’t perturbed.

Harry returned a few minutes later, putting a hand gently on my shoulder.

“She’d like to talk with you for a bit,” he said. “If your new friend can bear it.”

“Is Draco leaving already?” Teddy asked, an almost-whine.

“No,” Harry replied, “he’s just stepping out for a moment. What does this train do?”

And with that, Teddy was effectively distracted, and my excuse to avoid Andromeda was gone. Composing myself, I padded out of the room softly, meeting her dark eyes in the hallway.

“Why don’t we come downstairs,” she suggested, “and talk over the kitchen table.”

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Andromeda did not immediately lash out with accusations as I expected. She passed me a mug of tea, sat down at the table, looked me in the eyes, and asked, “Why now?”

_Why now?_

_Why at all?_

“I…lived alone for a very long time,” I started, wrapping my hands around the mug as though it was grounding me. “With muggles. It was a good enough life, but very isolated, and…family is important.” I tried to construct my thoughts into spoken words. It didn’t help at the mention of _family_ my father’s empty eyes consumed my thoughts. “If you’ll let me, I would like to be a small part of Teddy’s life.”

She looked at me with a measured gaze. “What prompted this, Draco?”

I pursed my lips. “Harry.” I knew that would not be enough for her. “The life I’ve made for myself of late has shown me a great many things I feel the need to atone for. Seeing my parents, the way they are, it…scares me. They’ve pushed so many people out of their lives because of their prejudices and I’d rather not follow them on that particular path. If you’ll let me, I would like to try now, though I understand it’s terribly belated. I was afraid to even approach you but Harry convinced me. I’m…sorry, Andromeda,” I apologized, certain I was babbling too much. “I didn’t mean to dredge up bad memories. I’m sorry to interrupt your evening—I’ll go if you’d like.”

Her expression, miraculously, became much softer. “I don’t think there will be need for that,” she said. “I just hope you mean what you say.”

“I do,” I said firmly.

“That’s good,” she said, “because for Teddy’s sake I can’t have someone slipping in and out of our lives. If you’re here, you’re staying. And if you truly want to change, you have to prove it.”

“I will,” I said. “I promise.”

She nodded. “Thank you. And thank you for coming, Draco. I know it can’t have been easy. Not being able to see you was one of my largest regrets, and if anyone is to be at fault for not having a relationship between our families, it is not you who needs to apologize.” She touched the back of my hand. “Will you stay for dinner?”

I nodded. “If you’ll have me.”

She smiled. “Good. I’ll call you three down when dinner is ready. I’m sure Teddy is missing you already.”

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked me, ice crystals forming on his breath as we walked outside of the house.

“That was bloody terrifying,” I muttered. My head hurt and my shoulders ached from staying tense all dinner, though nothing had happened. Andromeda was perfectly pleasant and she and Harry had a lovely conversation. Teddy regaled me with numerous different stories about his daycare and I preferred to listen, opting to remain silent just in case I accidentally put my foot in my mouth, especially after my conversation with her went so well.

He sized me up and smiled. “But you did it.”

“Yes,” I said tiredly, hunching my shoulders and refusing to look at him and his joyful expression. “I did it.”

He slung his arm around my shoulder and hummed happily. I rolled my eyes, but wrapped my arm slowly around his waist after a moment, as though he wouldn’t notice the longer I took to do so. I still refused to look at him, but, staring at the sidewalk ahead of us, I afforded myself a small smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late! These few weeks have been super hectic, between moving two different times and classes starting soon. Hope you like it!


	22. The Potion

 “Harry?” I called.

“Yes?” he asked, doing something in the kitchen the banister blocked me from seeing.

“I’ll be down in a few minutes, okay?”

“Sure, I’ll put a heating charm on your plate.”

Harry told me the night before that he didn’t have anything to do today—no Ministry work, no babysitting Teddy, no helping Hermione or rebuilding Hogwarts or teaching DADA or one of the other millions of things he occupied himself with. Which meant this was the optimal day to test my new potion.

I wasn’t planning on telling him. If I didn’t tell him what I was going to do, I figured I wouldn’t have to lie about it. I remembered his concerned face when I told him the other one exploded—there was no need to worry him, because this one was absolutely going to work. I did everything right. Rubbish that I hadn’t made a proper potion besides Dreamless Sleep in over three years—I was damn good at what I did.

It was already cooled and poured into what I calculated as a single-serving vial. I figured I would need to adjust the dose based on how long I wanted it to work, but for now, a few hours would suffice. Fuck Win, I was going to be my own human being.

I plugged my nose and threw back the potion, the lingering taste still acrid on my tongue after I swallowed. I felt it slide unpleasantly down my esophagus to my stomach.

I figured by my notes that it would take anywhere between five and ten minutes to work as my stomach broke down the properties in it. Some had a higher absorption rate than others, so I would have to be very aware of myself for any distinct changes.

I paced around my room for a while, making Etty distinctly uncomfortable. Her tail lashed back and forth from her seat on the windowsill and she kept shooting me death glares for disturbing her silence, so I sat back down on the bed and waited.

It started with a feeling of slight nausea, then a strange and prickling sensation. I started feeling lightheaded and dizzy and had to throw a hand out on the bed to stabilize myself.

I took deep breaths and tried to relax. If this went by my calculations, I was supposed to end up with Pansy’s hair, Harry’s skin tone, and my eyes. I hadn’t tried to change anything that wasn’t external, so my height, weight and bone structure would still be the same. I hoped.

I became very itchy, that kind where it’s almost painful if you don’t scratch. Needless to say, it was distinctly uncomfortable, but it was quickly replaced by strange waves that seemed to ripple through my body and bubble at the skin.

 _“Harry?”_  I called urgently, the alarm evident in my voice. I held my arms out in front of me, watching the skin boil and deflate in horrified silence.

They slowed and lessened at the same time I started to shiver, feeling as though ice water was being dripped down my spine. I shut my eyes, afraid something worse than the boils was happening, and heard Harry’s footsteps up the stairs, heavy and rapid, taking two at a time.

“Draco?” he asked before rounding my doorway and stopping abruptly. “Wh—”

“Did it work?” I asked, my eyes still shut, hoping I was done with the reaction. “Do I look any different?”

“Yes—but—you—” I opened my eyes, ecstatic to see a skin tone much more pigmented than my usual one on my arms and hands. I felt through my hair, heavier and thicker than my usual, and couldn’t keep the grin off my face.

“Amazing,” I said, getting up and rushing to the mirror. My own eyes blinked back at me, wide and dancing underneath a fringe of dark hair.

“You didn’t think to warn me?” Harry asked, sounding rather piqued.

“I knew it would work,” I said cavalierly, shrugging off his pointed look. “We should celebrate.”

“Maybe we should wait and see what effects the potion has first.”

“Well, of course,” I said as I walked through my doorway, calling back to him as I walked through the hall. “But afterwards. For right now I should walk around, exercise a little bit. See if I feel anything different. You know.”

“What are you suggesting?” he asked, following me. I poked my head into his room, my eyes landing on the Quidditch brooms resting neatly in the corner.

“I think you have an idea.”

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  


Flying with Harry was much better without the thunderstorm. I was rusty and out of shape, being cooped up for so long, but the feel of the wind on my face and the thrill of finding the Snitch quickly overcame my renitence.

It took a while for Harry to get into the game, watching me closely as he was out of the corner of his eye, concerned that I would have some sudden and violent reaction and plummet out of the sky. But once he became reassured that that would not, in fact, occur, he sped off and gave chase with everything he had.

It was amazing, being in the air again, knowing that even if I looked different it was a look I chose for myself, a face no one else had. I felt more alive than I had in ages.

“When is it supposed to wear off?” Harry asked.

I shrugged. “It’s only been a few hours. By my calculations, a single dose should last anywhere between four and six hours, though if this works I’ll experiment with the quantity of the more resilient ingredients to see if I can get it to last.” Harry nodded.

Returned again to Grimmauld Place, I pulled off my flying robe and placed my boom in the closet. I was feeling a bit dizzy and lightheaded, though I attributed that to being up in the air for so long. I realized I had forgotten to eat again. I wasn’t sure how the potion would react on an empty stomach for so long, but I figured it would only make me feel worse if I didn’t eat.

“Lunch?” I asked him. He smiled.

We cooked together, Harry sautéing chicken and me preparing vegetables, taking spices out of the drawers, pulling things in and out of the ridiculous refrigerator Harry insisted on having even though Kreacher’s house elf magic would have kept the food perfectly preserved without it. He enjoyed cooking by himself, but he seemed to prefer cooking with a partner. I was usually very rarely up because of my absurd sleep schedule, too unsure of my own abilities to not screw up, or too lazy, and so we only ended up doing this a few times a week. I didn’t get the same pleasure out of preparing food as he did so it never seemed as much of a skill to cultivate for myself, until I saw how happy it made him.

I kept misjudging distances because my dizziness kept mounting throughout the time it took to cook. I ended up stumbling and spilling an entire container of pepper on the ground, so potent that I actually had to leave the room because I couldn’t stop sneezing. Harry cleaned everything up for me with a wave of his hand while I had my little fit in the other room, but when I almost did it a second time he relegated me to the table.

“Too much time in the air,” he said knowingly. “Used to happen to me after practice.”

I nodded and sipped the glass of water he gave me, wondering if it was really just that or the potion. I should have eaten, I just got so caught up in the potential of success that I totally forgot. Basically the only reason I remembered to eat when I lived on my own was my boss would let me eat before and after my shifts for free grace à Ryan. 

I absolutely devoured the plate he put in front of me, table manners all but forgotten. I had tomato sauce smeared all over my chin and ate so fast I could hardly taste. I was finished with the entire thing before Harry had even finished half.

“Is the potion making you hungry?” he asked, setting his fork down.

“I don’t think so,” I said, dabbing at the red before it dripped to my collar, trying to regain some semblance of etiquette. “Maybe. I forgot to eat breakfast.”

“Shoot,” he muttered. “I knew we forgot something. Do you feel alright?”

“I was a little lightheaded, but now I’m fine,” I said, though the strange floating feeling hadn’t left me. I needed to find my notebook and record this. I wouldn’t remember it all.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m _sure_ , Harry.”

He held up his hands. “If you say so.”

The floating feeling was bizarre indeed. It was sort of like that one time Ryan convinced me to go to a Muggle music concert with him and we smoked some sort of herb in the woods behind it. He convinced me it was for medical purposes, but he wouldn’t tell me what sort of medicine it was supposed to be. It was a strange feeling, as though everything was moving much too fast for me to keep up with, though truly nothing was moving at all.

Tiredness hit me like a brick. I couldn’t contain my yawn, to Harry’s mingling amusement and concern.

“Don’t give me that look,” I scowled.

“I won’t once you look more yourself,” he said. “Though your hair is starting to turn back again.”

“What!” I exclaimed, tiredness momentarily forgotten. I stumbled to the mirror, where I could see streaks of white-blonde intermingling with the dark hair I currently sported.

“Damn,” I muttered. _I’ll have to increase the amount of oak in the mixture. It’s hardly been three hours._

Ignoring the heaviness in my limbs, I walked purposefully back to my room and found my notepad, quickly scribbling down my findings, everything from right when I took the potion to right at that moment. In my haste, I’d sat on my bed instead of my desk, and the comfort of it drew me in.

Harry found me laying over the covers, fully clothed, my legs sticking awkwardly out to avoid soiling the blankets with the shoes I hadn’t taken off.

“Would you like any help?” Harry asked, amusement evident in is voice.

“Just the shoes,” I mumbled into my duvet. “I can’t reach them from here.”

I felt him sit down next to me and place a comforting hand on my calf before helping me out of my shoes. “Do you want to go under the covers?”

I sighed, knowing that yes I did, but not in my day clothes, but unfortunately I felt too heavy and floaty and strange to do anything much but lay there, and Harry certainly was not going to help me in that aspect if I could help it. “Sure.”

How we managed that with minimal movement on my part still eludes me, but we succeeded. “Is this the potion?” he asked again, quietly.

“I think so,” I yawned, my words garbled. “Could you…”

“Could I what?”

I realized that except for those terrible nights after the banquet we had never shared a bed. But Harry had always been the epitome of respectful, and I wanted him with me just then.

“Stay,” I told him. “Stay with me.”

“Because of the potion?” he blinked.

“Because I want you to,” I said. “And, yes, also because of the potion.” I didn’t want to have something horrible happen to me in my sleep when I was unaware.

 He sat down and looked as though he would stay there, but I made an impatient noise and pulled back the duvet for him.

“It’s still light outside,” he reminded me.

“I don’t care,” I pouted petulantly. Thank Merlin he’s so good-natured, because he just smiled and crawled in next to me. I immediately wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my face into his chest, finding comfort in his heartbeat and steady breathing, using it as a grounding point when I felt like I was going to float away.

He waited until he was sure I was comfortable to move, carding his fingers through my hair. It was horribly tangled from flying, but it was comforting nonetheless.

I drifted off, the scent of cinnamon and wind in my dreams.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I woke up to screaming.

“No— _Stop_ — _No_!”

“Harry!”

He had turned away in his sleep, curled into himself. He was shaking, and his shoulder where I touched him was burning up. Thankfully it didn’t take much to wake him up, just my voice in his ear.

He started, bolt upright, muscles tense and eyes wide in the dim light of evening, ready for a fight. He moved so quickly he almost elbowed me in the face, unaware of what he was doing.

“…Draco?” he asked between rasping breaths, his voice hoarse and confused. “What?”

“Shhh.” I put one hand on his shoulder again, still feeling him shake. “It’s alright. You’re alright.” I reached over and grabbed his hand, on its way to tug painfully at his hair in that way he has, pressing it to my chest where it’d be safe. “You’re alright, love.”

“I thought—” he started, his voice cutting off and his breathing coming in faster. He wasn’t calming down much at all, and I was afraid he was going to have a panic attack.

I held his face in my hands, trying to get him to look at me. His eyes somehow looked even greener without his glasses, though they had a strange off-focus quality. I hoped that was more because he just couldn’t see well than because he was just so incredibly panicked, but maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part.

I pressed his forehead to mine, trying to speak in a calming tone of voice.  Trying was the operative word, however, because if I’m honest it deeply unsettled me to see him so distraught. I hadn’t seen him so upset since he saw my scars, and even then hadn’t been this bad. I vaguely wondered somewhere in the back of my mind if he dealt with this every night, and I had just never noticed because of the silencing spells he put on his room.

I felt his arms snake around me and pull me in close. He was holding me a bit too tightly for comfort, but if it got him to stop shaking, I’d bear it. He buried his face in the side of my neck and I ran my fingers through his hair and stroked the back of his neck gently, murmuring meaningless words, trying to quell the breathless pants that seemed to rip themselves out of him. Every now and then he would make these tragic little noises and I knew from experience he was trying to hold back tears.

“It’s okay, baby,” I murmured in his ear. “It’s okay to cry.”

I held him until the sun had finally sunk all the way behind the horizon, the inky black of the night staining the sky. He tried to pull away, but I kept my arms around him. He scrubbed at his face and took a deep breath, his face red from either the exhaustion or the embarrassment or both.

I moved one of his hands from his face and kissed his cheek gently. I had a feeling he wouldn’t want to talk about it, but I needed to.

I rubbed circles in his back. “How often does this happen?”

“Few times a week,” he muttered. “It’s fine, I deal with it.”

“It didn’t happen the days after the Banquet.”

“I didn’t sleep much, then.”

I blinked, troubled. “Why not?”

“I worried, but it was fine. I put Pepper-Up in my morning coffee and was all set.”

I scowled and opened my mouth to protest, but Harry cut me off. “I really don’t want to talk about this right now, Draco.”

I bit my lip and nodded reluctantly, still watching him closely.

“Thank you,” he said at last, a weak self-deprecating smile playing on his lips.

I kissed him again. “You don’t need to say that,” I said. “And you don’t have to smile unless you mean it.”

“That’s not a very Slytherin thing to say.”

“You’re not a very Slytherin person.”

“Actually,” Harry said, “the Sorting Hat almost put me there.”

I blinked and scrutinized him, watching him color more under my gaze. I thought about everything he had told me he’d done during our years at Hogwarts. “I suppose I could understand that at one point,” I admitted. “Though I doubt it applies anymore.”

“Why not?” Harry asked, puzzled, twisting in my arms to seek out his glasses so he wouldn’t have to keep squinting at me.

“ ‘We are made of the choices we make, not the memories we have’,” I quoted. I forget where I read it, but when I did it struck a chord with me. “You’re much too Gryffindor now. There’s no turning back.”

“You think?” he asked, cocking his head and looking at me like he was trying to figure me out, finally able to now that he had located his specs.

“Well,” I started, tugging him closer. “You’re very brave.” I kissed his cheek. “And kind.” His jaw. “And honest.” His neck. “Loyal.” His neck again. “Strong.” His neck again.

I shifted back up and kissed him on the mouth gently. “You’re just so _good_ , Harry.”

He pressed me close, his expression once more serious.

“Say it,” I told him, my arms around him.

He sighed into my neck, but didn’t say anything.

“Say it,” I repeated. “Say that’s what you are.”

“...You’re ridiculous,” he said, but he said it warmly.

“We’re not talking about me,” I said stubbornly. “We’re talking about you. And you were saying how you’re…”

“Brave,” he sighed, knowing I wouldn’t stop until he did so. “And good and kind and all the others.”

“They’re true,” I said. Harry made a noncommittal noise.

“They _are_ true,” I repeated. “I’m right.”

He smiled. “You almost always are.”

I beamed, hugging him a little tighter. “I know.”

 

I watched his face when his breathing slowed and he fell back asleep. He looked like a very different person without the tenseness in his jaw and the sharpness of his eyes. I would say he looked younger, but I’d known him when he was younger, and he never looked like that to me. He looked…untroubled.

I wished I could figure out a way to make him look like that when he was awake.

I stared at him for a while, looking at how the light from the open window played on his features and marveling that this was the man whose arms were around me. He really was beautiful.

I wanted to get up and shut the pane after a while, letting in the cold breeze as it was. But the minute I started shifting away from him Harry’s arms settled around me again protectively, his eyelids twitching in his sleep. I didn’t have the heart to wake him up, not when he looked so peaceful after what had happened.

The window stayed open for the rest of the night.

 

Eventually, I drifted back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies! Sorry this chapter took so long. Between school and my jobs I've been swamped trying to get into the swing of things.   
> As always, thanks for reading! I hope you like it! :)


	23. Lies

The next morning, because I was a stupendous human being, I made breakfast when I got up instead of just lying there waiting for Harry to move. It wasn’t anything fancy, just eggs and cheese and toast and tea and juice, but I figured he deserved to lie around for a while longer after the night he had. I couldn’t believe he had nightmares like those three times a week, ones where he nearly fell into a panic attack, and then had enough energy to go about his day afterwards. No wonder he didn’t like going out in the evenings. I would have been exhausted.

I made a list in my head of the ingredients I would need for a new batch of Dreamless Sleep. And Pepper-Up. And wanted to talk to Luna about seeing if she knew any good therapists Harry might get along with. I snorted at the thought—asking Loony for a shrink wasn’t even close to something I’d expected for my future.

I could probably use one too, I figured. But then, so could most of us. Something to put away for our coffee date today.

I put everything on a tray and floated it into my room behind me, settling it on the bedside table. Harry was only just awake, in that period where you still feel too heavy to do much other than blink and lie there.

“M’ning,” he mumbled, rubbing one eye.

“I come bearing gifts.” I floated the tray on top of the duvet.

“You’re a treasure,” he said, rolling over to give me a kiss.

“I know,” I smiled.

I waited to ask my question until he was more awake and had started eating. “You didn’t happen to catch when exactly the potion wore off, did you?”

He shook his head, mouth full of scrambled eggs.

I sighed. “My own fault for falling asleep. I’ll have to take better notes next time.”

“You did pretty damn good for our first try,” Harry said encouragingly. “I would have poisoned myself, probably.”

I snorted indelicately. “Proably.”

He stretched out on the bed. “Any plans for today?”

“Going to see Luna again at noon,” I said, stirring my tea. “Why?”

“I sort of pictured us just staying here,” he said. “If, you know, you’d want to.”

I grinned. “I’d definitely want to,” I replied, settling myself against him. “But I suppose I can settle for the next three hours instead.”

“We’ll have to make the most of them,” Harry said in mock seriousness.

“Oh, most definitely,” I agreed. “I suggest we start now.”

I held his chin gently and pulled his smiling face in for a kiss.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 “How’ve you been, Lovely?” I asked contentedly, armed with two steaming hot coffees.

“Quite well,” she replied, though her smile was wan and there were soft smudges of dark circles under her eyes. “You?”

“Ah, well, you know,” I answered, and then launched into a spiel about my latest potion and its potential weaknesses. She nodded along the whole time, making all the appropriate noises at all the appropriate times, but I knew her heart wasn’t in the conversation.

“What is it, Loony?” I asked, interrupting myself.

She bit her lip in thought, hands around her cup of coffee. “I have something I need to tell you.”

“Is it the nargles in my ears?” I asked playfully, wary and wanting to draw the conversation away from the seriousness in her voice dragging her down.

“No, it isn’t,” she answered. “And that’s ridiculous, there would be none of those anywhere near this climate,” she muttered distractedly.

I raised an eyebrow. “Then what is it?”

She scrubbed her face with her hands. “I…” She sighed. I wasn’t used to seeing her struggle so much with words. “I wanted to go somewhere public to tell you this, somewhere you wouldn’t feel…but this isn’t the place.”

“To tell me what?”

“First thing’s first,” Luna said, her eyes much more focused than usual. “I’m afraid an Unbreakable Vow is in order.”

“Wha—?” I spluttered. “An Un—But, Luna?” I expected this from Ron. Hell, I might have expected this from Harry, or even Pansy. But not Luna.

She gave me a sympathetic look. “Vow, my dear, or we will have bought all this coffee for nothing.”

“I…” I felt like I’d just been punched in the stomach. “Is everything quite alright?”

“It will be,” she said, her jaw set. “But only if we go through with this as we must.”

“What is this, Luna?”

“Just a talk,” she smiled sadly. She didn’t try to make light.

I was trying to catch my breath.

“Please, Draco.”

“You can’t tell me anything about it beforehand?”

She shook her head, curls bobbing.

I swallowed. I didn’t like not knowing. But I liked Luna. I trusted her.

“Alright.”

She nodded solemnly. “Come on then.” She stood, grabbing her coffee, taking hold of my arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

She told me everything on the library steps.

Everything.

That everything she gave me was never anything at all.

 

There was a crack in the stone between my feet. The longer I stared at it, the larger it seemed to become.

She took back everything, and I stared at that crack.

 

A search for the missing Draco Malfoy. Suspected to be part of an anarchist plot to take down the Ministries of Europe and abolish democratic government to reinstate oligarchic pureblood reign once again, like that of our ancestors. A group of people who didn’t really, truly care about the so-called purity of the wizarding world—whose only motivation is and ever was the pursuit of power.

 

“All those research trips for the Quibbler—they were research, I promise. But they weren’t for the Quibbler.”

 

An undercover Unspeakable with a previous history in warfare and enough apparent oddity to be dismissed as a non-threat. One who had escaped imprisonment by the Malfoy family before relatively unscathed. One who always had a sharper mind than nearly everyone gave her credit for.

 

“But this doesn’t change anything, Draco. We _are_ friends, or that’s what I’d like us to be if we still can.”

 

I told her everything about me. She knew _everything_.

And I knew nothing.

 

“You’re not a suspect anymore, love. And I know this comes late, but I wanted you to know the whole time. But we couldn’t risk it, not when we knew there were moles in the Ministry. We had to throw them off.”

 

The clicking of other people’s shoes rang in my ears.

 

“I have to leave again. Research. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

 

I wanted to say something cutting. I wanted to say something harsh enough to tear her apart.

I stared at the crack between my shoes and fell apart instead.

“Who knew?” I asked finally, finding my voice hoarse and scratchy.

She looked at me, her eyes sad and sympathetic. “Ron didn’t, if that makes you feel any better. Still doesn’t. Harry…did. It’s why I asked him to get you out of Ministry custody—and why I asked him to guard you. For me to do so would reveal too much of my position.”

“Guard me,” I scoffed, bitter. “You couldn’t guard me, Loony.”

She raised an eyebrow, a lightly sardonic expression far too much like my own.”Couldn’t I?”

“My attack…” I started.

“Was a test,” she finished. “For Blaise Zabini and Theo Nott as much as it was for yourself. We needed to know without a doubt where all of your allegiances laid. Visiting radical ex-patriots at Pansy’s heavily warded apartment didn’t seem quite so innocent for a suspect.”

“But I’ _m not_ —”

“Like I said, your name is clear.”

A thought struck me. “Was anyone following me then?”

“Modified, nearly undetectable tracking charms on you, Blaise, Theo, and Pansy,” she said. “George Weasley’s newest upgrade to extendable ears, complete with cloaking devices built in. Put on all of you since they re-entered the country. Taken off of you after you became Harry’s ward, so to speak, and removed off of Pansy after she was cleared as a non-suspect.”

“You knew the whole time who they were and didn’t tell anyone,” I marveled.

“It wasn’t just me,” she said. “I was reporting back to my superior. I had very little maneuverability. Letting the two of them move freely and report back to their own group while unsuspectingly being trailed was the best way to get more information without putting our own people in unnecessarily dangerous situations.”

 “You lied,” I said, unable to do much else but state the obvious. “You _lied_. You, Harry—you all lied! About _everything_!”

She looked away from me, unable, I think, to stand the bitterness and betrayal she found there. “I do care for you. I never lied about that. And so does he, Draco.”

“ _Don’t_ say my name!” I snarled. Tears burnt my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I refused to let her see what damage she caused. “I trusted you!”

“I know,” she said hoarsely, her mouth a tight line, her eyes shiny but fixed on some faraway vanishing point.

 

“I _trusted you!_ ” The sentence was ugly, the words rancid and vulgar in my mouth. I spat them at her like stinging poison, too disgusted with myself to remain standing there.

I couldn’t stay. I had to leave.

I apparated back to that seaside town in Brittany, away from all the people I thought I knew, where the sea would welcome me back and my sobs would be drowned out by the ocean waves.

I did not intend to return.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been such a long time! I wonder if anyone is even still reading this tbh...


	24. Nobody Else Will Help You, Draco

My dad used to tell me that you couldn’t trust anyone but family. “Nobody else will help you, Draco.”  
We protect ourselves, we protect each other. Everyone else can go to hell. It’s human nature. I forgot it.  
My mother’s guards only stopped by once a week or so to check on her, and other than that they let her be. She was given an emergency portkey she could use if there was ever an issue, but other than that they didn’t really have any impact on her life. As it should have been for me.  
I showed up on her doorstep, my eyes red, my face pale, dripping seawater and smelling of salt. She welcomed me in with open arms and comforting silence. She made me my favorite tea. She ran me a hot bath with a fluffy towel. She brushed my hair and sat me in front of the fireplace to stare at the flames as they crackled and sparked.

I didn’t cry in front of her, not until I realized.  
“He has my cat,” I said shakily, watching the wood blacken and shrivel, feeling a similar sensation in my lungs. “He has my fucking cat.”

She didn’t ask many questions, but she knew. I know she did.  
I spent a lot of time staring out windows. So when she sent out her owl, I saw the red envelope tied to his leg.  
My mother doesn’t yell. I can’t imagine what was in that red envelope, but I’m certain it was nothing pleasant. I took violent, vindictive pleasure in it. 

I won’t go into the gory details. I don’t like talking about it.  
I learned how not to need them but it was a fragile state of being. In the beginning I cried a lot. Now, not so much. The tears have dried up, burnt away. But I still don’t drink hot chocolate. The smell of coffee turns my stomach. And I still want my fucking cat back.  
I didn’t need them. I wanted them back, but I hated them. The warmth I used to feel for them burned me and make me into a bitter, acrid thing. 

I didn’t deserve to be sad. I trusted them. I had been stupid and desperate and had gotten what I deserved. Sadness was a useless, pathetic emotion. Something I’d felt far too often before.  
Anger, though. I could use anger.  
I needed money.  
I couldn’t keep living with Mum. Not if I was going to do what I needed.

“Do you have the car?”  
When I first started, it was inelegant. Amateur shit. Pickpocketing. Summoning wallets on the metro. I thought I was sneaky, and I won’t say I got caught, but I got noticed.  
Opportunity presented itself as a petite Russian woman with scraggly hair and a scowl acidic enough to curl paint off a wall. She had holes in the hem of her shirt. She smelled like stale cigarettes. She told me she had a husband who didn’t ask a lot of questions and pointed me to the right street corner, one whose shadows were so dark and whose history so unfortunate most stayed away from it. One too many people killed on that corner, which meant it was perfect for me and what she needed me to do.  
No, I didn’t kill anyone.  
Yes, I was terrified.  
The first guy to pick me up thought he was slick, thought he could “show me a thing or two”, until I stunned him straight in the chest from two inches away. The car jolted. We almost hit a brick wall, but I jerked the wheel fast enough. I’d never driven before, but I knocked that strange stick thing in between the two front seats as I pushed his inert form out of my way, and the car miraculously stopped.  
I dragged his body out of the door. I may have accidentally hit his head dragging him by his feet, but I’m sure he didn’t feel it much. Or at least, not right then.  
I cast a quick Levicorpus and brought him back to the shadows, searching him. I found a penknife and a wallet with one hundred and thirty pounds in it.  
I wanted to run, made it to the end of the alley, before I realized what I’d forgotten. I turned back and, pointing at his head, cast a quick Obliviate.  
I didn’t get the car that night. Or the night after. Or the one after that.  
But then I realized what slow going my work was. I needed much more money if I was going to have the funds to support myself. I couldn’t simply summon every unsuspecting muggle passerby’s wallet, and I didn’t have the talent with concealment charms necessary for them to function properly in a crowd.  
I watched people drive. I figured it wouldn’t be too hard.  
The fourth night, I tried to drive the car. I apparated out of the front seat just before the hood hit the icy river. If I had more energy I would say that I used my cleverness to figure out how to turn a profit on it. But I’m tired, and I spent all the money I robbed off that car’s owner in a dive bar searching for something stronger than alcohol and someone with nothing to lose.  
Mother wasn’t happy when I didn’t come home that night.  
I’ve gotten better at it since then. Some I tried without magic, but I always resorted to it in the end. No use playing fair if you’re just gonna lose.  
My boss shorted me every time—she only paid a fraction of what the car was probably worth. But I made up for it as I got bolder. I kept the cash I took. I figured a peek at their ID’s wouldn’t hurt. Some of them had wives. Some of them didn’t.  
I wasn’t in the business of hurting people unnecessarily. If these men had a family I respected them, and if I didn’t steal it was because of the principle—I didn’t think I had the right to punish them for something their husband or father had done.  
If they didn’t, I took everything I could grab of significant value. Never-ending, bottomless bag charms came in handy. So did Concealment Charms. I got very good at my job. No one could catch me.  
Police almost did, once. But muggles don’t know how to apparate, and I didn’t give a shit anymore who saw.  
I stole some of their hairs too. Or bits of their nails. Some blood, sometimes, if they got hurt getting thrown out the car. But you know what I used those for.  
Mother worried. She suggested I talk to someone.  
I didn’t talk to anyone.  
I got my own place.

They ruined my life.  
They ruined my life because they thought it was necessary. Because they thought it was the right thing to do. Never mind I was a human being—I’d already been so completely evil once, what would stop me from being just as bad as Voldemort the next chance I got?  
I needed to know why.  
I needed to know just what this thing was about, what made it so bad, so scary that they just had to force their presences upon me for so long.  
I needed more information. And I had a place to start looking.

I checked in on him for days before to make sure he wouldn’t be where I was. I won’t say I stalked him. The first day I didn’t see him at all. I was relieved. I knew I wasn’t ready. I doubted I ever would be.  
The second day I wasn’t so fortunate.  
It hurt to see him. It felt like someone was stabbing my chest every time I saw his face. It reminded me of the way it used to feel right before I knew Aunt Bella would use the Cruciatus Curse on me, that knot in my belly just before she raised her wand, the cold sweat and upset stomach and pounding in my head.  
I didn’t pass his wards, ever. But one good thing about London is there are a lot homeless people. Nobody looks twice if they see a beggar on the street. Especially if he looks like a sad, balding, middle-aged man and not the person who thought he could love you, even though you never really did.  
It hurt. It hurt like hell. When I watched him walk out in his baggy jeans and his beat-up sweater running a hand through his messy hair like he always did, I choked on air and clenched my fists. It took all of my willpower not to scream at him, hit him, kiss him. I hated him so much - I thought I could love him. I thought he could love me back. I thought we were happy.  
Obviously, I was wrong. I wanted to shove him down and bash his head right into that stupid motorcycle of his. I wanted to pour his stupid mug of tea right over his head. I wanted to make him drink three Dreamless Sleeps in a row and watch him never wake up again.  
I wanted him to apologize. I wanted him to tell me he needed me. I wanted him to hold me and run his fingers through my hair and call me beautiful again. I wanted to smell cinnamon and autumn leaves and breathe in the scent of his shampoo.  
I wanted so many things. So much.  
But I’ve learned too many times, nothing is really about what you want.  
I watched him walk out of his front door, watched him lock it, watched him reinforce the wards. I watched him walk down the street. He had bags under his eyes again.  
Good.  
I watched my cat sleep in the second story window facing the road. The window that used to be mine.  
I wanted my fucking cat back, but I wanted something else more.

I had never tried two different mixtures of the same potion in one day. But then, I’d never felt so much like I had nothing to lose. 

The door to the telephone booth swung shut.  
“What is your identification?”  
“Harry Potter.”  
I was going to find out a thing or two about this god damn organization.


	25. The Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends! I'm so sorry I've been inactive for a while, this semester has really been one hell of a ride for me (and I know it says that I'm on hiatus, but I'm a mess, so I might be and I might not, and so I apologize for that and for myself in general for not being able to be on some sort of schedule--at least not until finals week is over).  
> I'm not really sure where this story is going tbh--I had something a bit different planned but then I realized that it first of all the plot didn't fit the personality of my Draco, and secondly that Draco is my actual baby and I love him so much and he deserves to be happy--even if he isn't very happy just yet.

_One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four_

My footsteps were quick but measured along the floor, echoing down the walls, mingling with other people’s noises.

Chin up. Shoulders back. Make sure that muscle isn’t twitching in your jaw.

I’ve lived with Harry long enough to know how he walks when he’s comfortable. I’ve watched him long enough to know how he walks when he isn’t.

Almost everything I know about him is a lie, I see that now. But something tells me he doesn’t enjoy the Ministry as much as others think.

It was early enough that the atrium wasn’t flooded with activity, but late enough that there were a good amount of people.

I’d done my research.

I’d pulled some strings. Not that I have much influence in government anymore, you see. Not that I have much money either. But my reputation precedes me. Disgraced but dangerous. And there are some people on Knockturn who can’t risk reporting a missing man without coming into some confrontation with the law themselves.

I tend not to look in a mirror, unless it’s not my own reflection looking back. But apparently I’m a rather alarming sight.

Normally, I’m beautiful, obviously. But I know how distress affects me. Merlin knows I got used to it during the war. Dark rings around my eyes. A sickly pallor to my cheeks. I look pinched; I never eat enough when I’m stressed. And I fidget when I’m restless—it bears a disturbing likeness to Not-Tom, unfortunately.

None of that is visible now, thankfully. All it took was a bit of Saint Potter’s DNA.

 

“Mister Potter! I haven’t seen you for quite some time,” said a voice I recognized, attached to a familiar face. I’d seen her at the fundraiser Harry—fucking Saint Potter—and I attended, though I hadn’t talked to her personally. I had been hoping to run into her.

“It’s been a while,” I replied, stepping out of the elevator. “How have you been?”

“Very well, thank you,” she replied, sipping her steaming cup of coffee. “And yourself?”

“Not bad, not bad. But, I did come to ask you something,” I started, adding the strange mix of confidence and humility Harry casts so often.

“Me? What would that be?”

“I’m worried for one of your operatives,” I began sincerely. “Though maybe this would be a conversation better had in private.”

She looked at me very intensely, coffee clutched in one hand, files in another. “..Very well,” the Co-Chair of the Department of Mysteries conceded. “Follow me to my office.”

 

Her face was stony when I finished talking.

“Operative Lovegood is on a classified mission. She should not have involved you,” she said, her jaw clenched.

“She has in the past.”

“In the past she always had my preapproval, and I had always met with both of you extensively first. In the past I allowed you to be brought in specifically for your expertise with Dark artifacts. Regarding your complicated past with the subject in question, involving you was a gross lack of foresight on the part of Miss Lovegood, which she will be hearing about.”

I agreed vehemently. But Harry wouldn’t, and even as an accomplished liar I have limits, so I decided to get straight at my point. “She told me she will be moving to study the organization Mr. Malfoy was suspected of supporting soon.”

“She should not have given you that information.” A muscle by her eye was twitching.

“Department Chair Huang,” I implored. “I’ve worked with your operatives before, extensively and with your approval. I don’t understand why I can’t be trusted to aid you now, especially if Mister Malfoy will no longer be involved. This organization has very obvious ties to The D-Voldemort, which, if I remember correctly, I defeated when I was hardly of age. If anyone can help your mission, it’s me, I assure you.”

“But you are _not_ one of my operatives, Mr. Potter. Other missions, yes, your presence was valuable. In this such one, it is not. You do not have the training or the skills necessary to be properly equipped in enemy territory. Such gross misconduct on my part would not only endanger your life but the lives of my operatives as well.”

“Then let me help with research,” I begged, if a bit forcefully. “No one wants a revival of Voldemort’s followers less than I do, Mrs. Huang. Please, for my own assurance. Let me do what good I can.”

Her stony exterior cracked a bit, I could see it in her eyes, the purse of her lips. And that was the only in I needed.

 

They were in Spain, mostly. A bit in southern France. But knowing Blaise and Theo, they spoke English. They had to, to get so many followers from England.

They had done extensive research on the combination of Muggle technology and magic. It seemed as though they had developed certain protection charms which would work around the technology and shield it from the interferences of magic, although how they did this was something that none of Mrs. Huang’s operatives could figure out. Very dense magical theory, combined with a hefty dose of physics and engineering. It was fascinating, really. If, you know, you ignored that they were developing this for a violent international coup and potential military dictatorship, that is.

They still hadn’t identified the leader, but they had identified numerous very showy figureheads that seemed to be involved more for the purpose of recruitment than for the actual fighting. All the men catalogued—for most of them were men, although there were some women too, few and far between—were archetypical representations of masculinity, both in muggle culture and wizarding. The flashy cars, the luxurious robes cut and styled differently than tradition, presumably to be more moveable and lightweight. The square jaws, defined muscles, piercing gazes. They all looked exactly alike. I couldn’t believe they’d convinced so many people to join them with this sort of propaganda. But then, I was cynical and jaded—maybe I wasn’t the best judge of someone with utopian aspirations, be them misguided.

And I got a name. One I made sure to memorize. Not because he was particularly notable in the photographs, but because he had successfully gotten more than two-dozen recruits (supposedly) safely to their main compound, though where that was, the Ministry did not yet know.

I found all of this out in the very short amount of time Huang let me peruse her files, if only to satisfy my so incredibly noble urge to make sure Luna knew what she were getting into. After ten minutes was up, she snatched the folder out, and politely but brusquely told me to leave. She had an owl to send. I suspected it was going to be a Howler.

I wasn’t too disappointed. At that point, I had a much more pressing issue immediately on my mind, one which I hope I hid well in front of her. It was well and good that she sent me off when she did, because less than five minutes later I had my head stuck in the toilet of a men’s restroom down the hall. My stomach felt like it was twisting in knots, or at the very least like the bottom of a burnt pan, crumbling and raw. I was uncomfortably warm, and felt a fever coming on. When I stood, my vision swam, but I held myself up against the wall and took many deep breaths before taking one step, and then another, and then another. I splashed water onto my face and washed my hands. Somehow I made it back to the elevators and out of the Ministry—I must have blacked out for a bit, because I can’t quite recall how. But I made it back to my tiny flat in one piece, so I can’t have done anything terrible along the way—though hopefully enough to get Potter an earful the next time he visits his friends in government. Merlin knows I was pleased at the prospect of getting Luna in trouble, and pinning it all on Potter in one go. Call me vindictive. You’d be right.

And then, for all my trouble, I spent the next three days in bed with a terrible fever, trying to keep the gentlest of food down. Apparently, my potion is only to be taken in single-serving doses, once per day, or else it wreaks disastrous havoc on the body. It was good for my potions research, at least, if bad for my plans.

I needed to get some books from the library. Specifically, the science section.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I was wrong. I thought, once, that bravery was a fleeting, fragile thing—like a gust of wind pushing the person it belonged to forward. But bravery is not like that. Not in the way I had it.

Bravery was in bitterness, anger, and a drive to get things done. It was in all the sorts of dark feelings I didn’t like to think about. It was in vindictiveness and obsession and a need within myself to prove that I didn’t need a caretaker, I didn’t need watching, I didn’t need saving, I didn’t need saving, I didn’t—I didn’t need anyone’s bloody Savior.

It would have to be sooner rather than later, for my own sake.

I’d walked dark pathways in my mind before and I was stepping frighteningly close to falling down a pit I didn’t think I could climb out of.

 

I’ve always liked researching. If it’s a good enough book, I can lose myself for hours. With all the stacks of books surrounding me, I could temporarily forget why I was even studying and just immerse myself in the subject. Physics was a difficult one, but thankfully I’d already taken some courses at college. I hoped one day I could go back and finish my degree, but it didn’t look like I would any time soon, or at all. I just kept looping back, spiraling further and further down. Even when I thought I had something right, I really had it wrong.

But enough of that. I had to be strong. I had work to do, and an ill-thought out plan to ponder. I knew a name, I knew what they were looking into, I knew why they existed…but what to do with that information, how to use it, that was the scary bit. That was the part I didn’t like thinking about.

In the midst of my research, in my tiny, dingy flat, in the dingy, frightening part of the city, I heard a tap on my window.

Luckily, I managed to get a room many floors above the ground, so it can’t have been a person. Instead, it was an owl. A different one from the one Harry used –I knew because I’d already received letters from him. My customary response was to rip the letter in two without opening the envelope, and sending his owl back with it. So far, I had received four unopened messages. I didn’t know if I would get more.

This owl was different, certainly not his. And it wasn’t Mother’s, either, I would know Hermes anywhere, and had exchanged quite a few letters with him since moving into this decrepit little space.

This owl was beautiful with dark brown feathers, spotted in white and black, with luminous orange eyes. Tentatively, I opened the window and let her flutter in, a letter attached to her leg with my first name written in delicate script.

I untied the letter from her leg and gently stroked the feathers on her head, hit with a pang of missing Etty once again. “I don’t have much here to offer you,” I told her tiredly, “but if you’d like a treat, I left a few mousetraps in the corner by the bathroom, and I think one of them went off an hour or two ago.” Disgusting, I know, but the owl hooted happily and flitted over, and it made less of a job for me.

As she had her dinner, I carefully opened the letter. To my surprise, it was from Andromeda. I hadn’t expected to hear from her ever again, or at least, not in anything that wasn’t a Howler—no doubt Harry was upset, and of course she would know I was the cause if I wasn’t around. I had thought that she would be furious with me for leaving him, leaving them, seemingly stringing them along right when I had tried to make amends, like a true coward. I had expected a real tongue-lashing, the kind of quiet anger that only the women in my mother’s family can produce.

It was indeed stern, but it was also concerned. She said—miraculously—that Mother had been asking after me to her, wondering if she knew about what Harry had done to upset me so much. I’m sure, knowing Mum, that it was much less polite than Andromeda recounted it.

She also implored me to come and talk to her. She wrote that if I had really meant what I said that day in her kitchen about not pushing people away and trying to become part of the family, now was the time to act instead of speak. She reassured me that Harry wouldn’t know unless I wanted him to, and she told me she would try to help. She wanted to know that I was alright.

I read it and I wanted to cry.

Mum had tried to help me, I know she had. And she did, but I was too angry to help. I still might have been, I didn’t know. But my momentum was wearing thin and slowing down and I was still angry but I had no direction, and I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t know what I was doing, I only knew that it had to be _something_ or I felt like I would fall down, down, down…

I wasn’t sure whether or not to trust her, but I wanted to. I knew she was involved with Harry. He obviously loved Teddy, and the little boy was completely taken with him. And Andromeda seemed to trust him, which meant he spent quite a good deal of time there. I couldn’t see him, I just—I—

Even the thought of seeing him again made my chest tight. I didn’t want him to know where I was. I didn’t want him to know where I’d been. And even if I could trust Andromeda, which was a very big if, I knew I couldn’t trust little Teddy to keep quiet. He didn’t know any better.

I thought about my studies. I thought about Etty. I thought about the friends I had made outside of Luna and Harry, admittedly few. I had built something, something very small but still. Did I want to give that up and keep running like I was now?

I didn’t know where I was headed, but I knew enough to know it wasn’t a good place. Researching an organization dedicated to overthrowing the government, researching the people involved—what the hell was I doing? What the hell did I think I could do? I couldn’t do anything right. I couldn’t even support The Dark Lord correctly, and that had my family lineage all wrapped up in it. And I couldn’t undermine him, either—I was too much of a coward. I had done what I could to help the people in the dungeons of the Manor, but I’d been so scared for my own safety that I’d had anxiety attacks and cried each time. Maybe if I hadn’t been so afraid, maybe if I’d been stronger, or smarter somehow, I wouldn’t have been in that situation or subsequently this one now. If I could have just been _good_. Why couldn’t I be good? Why couldn’t I just get anything right, just one thing? Why did I have to be so angry and sad and awkward and isolative, why did I have to push everyone away all the time, why couldn’t I just get anything right? Why, _why_ , oh god _why_ couldn’t I just do _something_ good for _once_ in my entire fucking broken life.

Maybe if I could I would have friends. Maybe I wouldn’t have been lied to. Maybe if I was brave, if I had chosen well, maybe they wouldn’t have felt they needed to lie to me. It felt like my fault.

Why did it feel like my fault?

What was so wrong with me that this sort of thing kept happening?

Maybe if I was someone else, I would still have coffee dates with Luna and get to hear her wispy voice talk about nonsensical little creatures and calm me down with a small hand on my own. Maybe, just maybe if I could just be _better_ , maybe then Harry could really—he could really love—

I wanted to see him so badly it hurt. I had to bite my lip to keep from crying and could feel the unshed tears in my eyes, but I couldn’t let myself go down that road.

I swallowed heavily around the lump in my throat and took a deep breath, counting down from ten slowly, first in English, then in French. I listened to the contented rustling of feathers coming from the owl, shuffling to rest after finishing her snack. I rubbed my face with my hands, made a split decision, and didn’t let myself think about it.

 

Andromeda—

Tell me a time when Teddy’s not around, and I’ll be there.

—Draco

 

I tied it to the little owl’s leg as fast as I could without bothering her, held her up to the open window, and gave her one final pet on the head before she flew away. I held my breath as I watched her go, only releasing it when she was out of sight.

I hoped I made the right decision.

 


	26. "Oh," I said.

Before my meeting with Andromeda, I smoked two of my anti-anxiety cigarettes one after the other. And then I smoked two more muggle ones, because my remedy wasn’t working as well as it usually did, though I knew it wasn’t for fault in the compound itself. It was all me.

I was taking far too many risks in this than was my liking.

I kept perseverating over what might happen if I saw Harry there. If she had gone behind my back and invited him as well, or if there was an emergency and showed up, or even if he just firecalled her for some reason, I didn’t know what I would do. I imagined running, I imagined shouting, I imagined hitting him and crying. I imagined he would shout, or he would cry, or he would beg for forgiveness or sneer in derision, depending. I hoped desperately that he hadn’t been faking affection for me. I hoped equally that he had already forgotten me.

I felt an itch in my forearm, and tried to resist scratching at my Mark.

 _Why did he do this?_ spun around and around in my head, and I could never figure out the answer.

I hoped Andromeda would still act kind. I didn’t know if she would. I knew that, if our positions were reversed, I probably wouldn’t have.

I worried about what I would say to Andromeda. About how I would explain myself. The restraints of the Vow hadn’t worked when I was under the influence of my potion, in the Ministry—maybe because m potion changed so much of me that the magic could no longer recognize my blood, or some other reason, I wasn’t sure. But I wasn’t taking it today. And I didn’t know what to say to her to explain what happened any other way. I knew I owed her _something_ , at least.

I took a long drag from my last cigarette and watched the clock.

Ten minutes to time.

Five minutes.

One.

 _You’re late, Draco_.

One minute past. Two. Three.

 _Do it_.

 _Do it, you coward. Go now_.

 

                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I was thirty minutes late, but she didn’t comment on it. She just opened the door and let me in, waving me into the kitchen where she made me tea and pushed a plate of cookies over to me on the table. Little Teddy was gone for the morning, away at preschool. Andromeda told me he was becoming very skilled at macaroni art and finger painting. I believe it was an attempt to make me smile, but the movement of my mouth felt more like a clunky grimace, made ugly by worry.

I wasn’t sure what to say at first, and I wasn’t sure how to say it.

“I’m sorry,” I started, my voice thick but quiet, staring at my tea, running my fingers up the side of the mug. “I shouldn’t have…run off like that, it was my fault.  I couldn’t, I was…upset, and I wasn’t thinking.”

“What was your fault, Draco?” she asked me, sitting across the table.

“I…” I thought, trying to catch the breath that seemed so difficult to keep. _If only you weren’t a coward, this wouldn’t have happened. All of it._ “I’m… _This_ ,” I said, opening my hands and making a vague gesture. “Messing it up.”

“You haven’t messed anything up you can’t fix,” she reassured me, her features still so like Bella but her expression and tone so different. She watched me for a little as I tried to compose myself. Maybe I shouldn’t have smoked two of those anti-anxiety cigarettes.

“From the way Harry explained it to me, you haven’t done anything wrong.”

I didn’t like hearing his name out loud, in this kitchen where he’d been, in this house that was full of his presence. “Please,” I said. “Don’t talk about him. I’d rather…not bring him up.”

“Alright,” she agreed, nodding gently. “But, I do have something for you.”

“From him?” I asked, alarmed. If it was from him I didn’t want it. I couldn’t take it, for a number of reasons that each flew through my head.

“No,” she said. “It belongs to you. Wait here, I’ll go fetch it.”

I watched her go up the stairs and thought. What could it have been? Something that belonged to me? Something I had left at the house, maybe my books or clothes? I wanted those back, though I knew I couldn’t go in that house any time soon. Or maybe my reading glasses, I had been struggling a bit as of late without them. Or perhaps some of my lotions and smelly potions—I missed the glittering one from Pansy, the one that helped me refrain from scratching my Mark. Maybe that favorite sweater of mine, the one with the small tear in the back, colored like the sky and soft as a cloud—I had used to wear it on days my anxiety was bad, Harry knew how I loved it—

I heard a step creak, and looked up to see Andromeda carrying a small, sleepy white and black bundle of fur with a starburst and a jagged ear.

“Oh,” I said softly.

“She’s yours, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Can I hold her?” I held out my arms, and she dropped her in them slowly. It felt stupid of me, to get so emotional over seeing a cat, but she was my cat and she’d been with me through everything, my little companion, and it felt so good to have her back.

“Oh,” I said again, burying my face in her fur so Andromeda wouldn’t see the tear trailing down my cheek.

 

                                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I returned to my flat with Etty in tow and spent the last of my money (and some of some poor mark’s money, after that) on new food and litter for her, and a little toy.  It was good to have her back. It was good to be able to focus on a little creature and her immediate non-issues for a little while. I felt her soft fur under my fingertips and scratched under her chin and behind her ears, felt her purring beneath my palm.

I had fled before Teddy returned, still too wary of Harry to risk seeing him. Andromeda had been very kind to me. She said she would try to find me a respectable job in the wizarding world if I wanted one again—she had more contacts than my mother, untarnished as she was by her name. And she offered to help me find a nicer flat in a better area, as Mum still can’t leave France.

I told her I would think about it. I didn’t really want to stay in England, or any of Britain, really. I fantasized about escaping somewhere far away—New Zealand maybe, or even Asia if I was feeling adventurous. Somewhere absolutely no one knew me. But it would be for the wrong reasons, I knew. I wouldn’t be there because I really wanted to, I would be there because I was running away. And so I just couldn’t, because even if I’m not very brave, I’m still very proud, proud enough not to run away from something with my tail between my legs just because of one person. One very important, very influential, very misguided and—I could see now—very controlling person.

_Why did he do it?_

Was it because he didn’t trust me? That must have been some of it. Why else would he lock me up like Rapunzel in a tower, albeit with short hair, an anxiety problem and a checkered past? Maybe he was really worried about my safety, but I thought that was only part of it. I thought he was afraid I would leave. Though, at the start, I probably would have. I might have. I didn’t know. We had been getting along well enough, even gone on a date. I had thought we were getting to know each other, and even though I was reluctant and hesitant and wary, I had been engaging, not fleeing.

Maybe he was worried I would go to the reporters? That he thought I was still so vindictive that if something went wrong in that strange relationship we had, I would blow it all up on the front page of the Daily Prophet the next morning unless I had something to scare me into staying. But that seemed a bit far-fetched. Then again, so did the Savior fear mongering someone he supposedly wanted to be romantically involved with into staying with him.

I thought of Harry’s background, of how he had been brought up. I knew he lived with Muggles. I knew they hadn’t treated him exceptionally kindly. I knew he was always much happier at Hogwarts than home, and that he spent all the holidays with the Weasleys’, and so I figured they must not have had a good relationship—especially since, as he was then, Harry had been exceedingly easy to live with, though I was biased.

I thought about Dumbledore. The man was always very clever, much smarter than the façade he put on as a doddering old man sometimes. I know he and Harry had been very close. From the way I’d heard him talk about him, I think he looked up to him as a father figure. And I didn’t know for certain, but I knew Dumbledore could have done a better job of protecting him. The way it seemed to me, everyone in his Order could have during the war—but then, we all had to grow up fast. We were just kids. But he had to save everyone, all the time.

I felt glad, in that moment, that Harry didn’t know I’d been assigned to kill the headmaster, or that my cowardice had forced Severus to do it instead. That night was a festering blemish on my mind, still one of the worst nights I’ve had.

I thought about Teddy Lupin, about how he was the child’s godfather. He must have been close with his parents, the late Professor. The one who was a werewolf, fired after one year, who went into hiding and was—as I saw then—a spy within Greyback’s ranks. An exceedingly brave man then, no doubt. One Harry certainly would have looked up to, and one who obviously liked him very much to give him that title. And he, too, like so many, was now dead.

I mulled over everything and felt like I was very close to realizing something. Maybe I already had. But I knew enough to know that Harry may have needed help, but it could never come from me again. Even if he was trying to protect me, to save me, even if he had the absolute best of intentions, I was afraid to see him again. And even though I was, as I’ve said, no paragon of courage, I had never before felt _afraid_ to confront an ex—awkward, yes, irritated maybe, nervous certainly, but not afraid. And even though I was fairly certain he wouldn’t do anything aggressive—definitely not anything physical, because he had never laid a hand on me that wasn’t gentle—I was afraid he would try to convince me this was all in my head. That I was overreacting, that I had always been free to come and go as I pleased. That I had liked living with him, that I had chosen to sequester myself from the rest of the world. Because if I was honest with myself, though it was often frustrating and I was restless and uncertain and isolated, it was nice to not have to worry about anything anymore. To just look forward to seeing Harry again. It wasn’t terrible. But I was afraid to go out, and I was afraid of making him angry, and I was afraid of disappointing him—all things that fed from the issues I’d had in the past because of my name, because of my father, because of all the toxic things I’d learned and done myself over the years. So yes, a lot of them were my issues. But he fed into them. The way he spoke, the way they _both_ spoke made me feel vulnerable and weak without Harry at my side in public. Because it wasn’t just Harry who was involved with this, no. It was Luna who started it. I knew that. But it felt more personal with Harry. I had _lived_ with him. And we had…what we had.

And what if I met him, and he said he hadn’t known what he was doing? That Luna had kept him in the dark somehow, that even though she said he was involved he wasn’t really, that he had only been looking out for me. What if he apologized and begged for me to take him back. If he looked at me imploringly with his lovely eyes, reaching out to me, pulling me into one of his hugs and pressing me close, one arm against the small of my back, his fingers in my hair. What would I do then?

I knew what I would do, because I was weak. And so I couldn’t see him.

Gods, I wanted to see him.

 

I was exhausted from meeting with Andomeda, but seeing her had been a good thing. It had been good for me. Talking with her was hard, but after it, I’d felt lighter. Like I had a path I could follow again. Like I had a reason. She was going to help me, she cared, she could. I was going to get a job, and this one would be a good one, a real one, not just waiting tables but maybe something I could turn into a career. She was going to help me not make a mess of myself again, and I owed it to her to try. I had to get out. I had to stop hurting people. I never wanted to be the person who hurt people again, after the war, after I’d began living with muggles. But I was bitter and angry and sad and so I let myself slip back into this lifestyle, siphoning off of others, hurting people to keep myself afloat. I didn’t like who I was, but I could change it.

I had made a good decision talking to Andromeda.

So, though it made me nervous, I made another vow to myself that night.

The next day, I would go see Pansy for the first time in weeks. And I would tell her everything I could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me! I know I haven't been posting nearly as much as I've wanted, personally. Between breaking my leg earlier in the semester and finals completely overrunning me now, I've had very little free time. But I hope you like this chapter! I love comments, they're always appreciated :)


	27. The Book of Faces

She didn’t slap me, but I flinched anyway when she hugged me in her doorway, hard and strong. It took a few seconds, but I relaxed enough to put my arms around her. We usually never hugged, and it always surprised me how much smaller she was than me. Not fragile, not exactly—that word fit Pansy as badly as any I could think of. But, real. Human. Not the larger than life, indomitable woman, perpetually in motion and always in my corner.

I felt her shaking. “Pans…?” I asked, worried. She hardly ever let her emotions get the best of her, not since the war. “Are you okay?”

She sniffed and straightened up, scrubbing her eyes and brushing her hair back into place. That’s when she slapped me.

“… _Ow_ ,” I muttered vehemently, both hands moving to cover my cheek.

“You deserved that, you _fucking_ bastard!” she snarled heatedly. “Come in and close the door behind you. You’d better have a good explanation. You’ve been gone nearly a _month_ , Draco, no letter, no call, _nothing_ , I had no idea what the _fuck_ was going on and Potter was about as talkative as a Blast-Ended Skrewt, and as pleasant as one too, I swear to Merlin—”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupted anxiously. There was the anger I’d worried about. “I’m sorry, Pans. I’ll try to explain. I promise.”

“You’d better,” she huffed. “Tea?”

“Sure.”

“Make it yourself, then. Make some for me, too.”

I nodded. I could handle her ordering me around for a few hours, or days, or…however long it took. I knew I’d done her wrong by just running off. I hated that I’d worried her—she was my most loyal, stalwart friend, my best friend ever since we were tiny, and she was the only one I really kept in constant contact with after the war as I receded away from wizarding society. I would do anything to make it up to her, I…I couldn’t lose her too.

The thought took me breath away, and I hesitated in front of the kettle, half full with water. “Pans, you…you wouldn’t lie to me, would you? Or—” I took a swift breath. “Or leave me?” I bit my lip and stared into the sink, setting the kettle down and wishing I could take back my words immediately. We never talked like that to each other. I didn’t like how unsure my voice sounded. Or, well… _Pathetic. I sound pathetic._  

“No,” she said immediately. She sounded a little offended, a little confused, and still more than a little angry. “Why? What happened?”

I filled the kettle, my knuckles turning white around the handle and the faucet. I walked it over to the stove and set the knob, taking my time in answering. Every time I opened my mouth to tell her everything, a stabbing pain wedged itself through my temple, as I expected. But I couldn’t get frustrated now, not when I was trying so hard to make this right. So I had to choose my words very carefully.

“I was…lied to,” I began. “By two people I trusted and valued.” I took a few deep breaths to settle myself, still not sitting.

“Potter and Lovegood,” she said, a question phrased as a statement. I turned around to look at her. Her lips were pursed together in frustration and one eyebrow was raised, but she was leaning on the edge of her seat, elbows on knees and hands clasped in front of her.

“I can’t confirm anything,” I said tightly, sighing in relief when the pain didn’t come.

“What?” Her bright eyes became sharp as knives.

“I can’t confirm anything,” I repeated. “I Vowed not to.”

She was quiet for a few beats, her lips parted slightly, her expression shocked and incredulous. “He _didn’t_ ,” she hissed between her teeth. “That _bastard!_ What did he make you do? Don’t answer that, you can’t. I’ll get him to tell me himself. Fuck him, I knew he was bad news! He always is! He’s always trouble, Draco!”

“I—this month, he didn’t make me do anything, going away wasn’t him” I hurried to clarify. “That was for myself. For my own headspace, I needed—” I swallowed heavily. “I needed distance. He never really _made_ me do anything, um, not by force, obviously, he would never hit me or, well, he—um.” I cut off babbling abruptly, another swift pain racketing around my skull. “ _Fuck_.”

“Doesn’t need to hit you if he can hurt you in other ways,” she said darkly, getting me up and ushering me towards the kitchen table. “You know that, Draco. Sit. I’ll get us the tea. And then I’m going to Potter’s house and crushing his stupid glasses under my designer heels.”

“His house is under a Fidelius Charm,” I said. “And heavily warded.”

“Yes, but you know the address, and his schedule.”

“Yes, I do.”

She made me a big mug of tea, a little dollop of milk and lots of sugar, how I like it. I didn’t say much, and she didn’t ask me to, running around grabbing her purse, her scarf, that ridiculous leather jacket she said made her look like an American rock-star and the heels she always wore when she wanted to sound intimidating, checking to make sure the wings on her eyeliner were as sharp as blades and her lipstick perfect and dark as blood. Pansy wore her outfits like armor. She always believed that how you look is how you feel is how you become, and she wanted to look dangerous, I could tell. She wanted to be as intimidating as possible.

 Once she was adequately satisfied with her appearance, she returned to me in the kitchen and put her hand on my shoulder.

“Pansy…” I started, staring at the table. “I can’t come with you.”

Her eyes blazed. “I didn’t expect you to. I want to give him a piece of my mind without you there to stop me.”

“I don’t want him to know where I am,” I said quietly, a deep frown marring my face, upset and disgusted with how much of a coward I still was. I didn’t want Pansy to fight my battles for me. I didn’t want anyone to fight at all, but if there had to be one, I wanted to be able to do it for myself.

“And I won’t tell him. That’s for when you’re ready to talk to him yourself, if you ever are.” She paused, her expression softening. It wasn’t an emotion her face wore often. “But if you’re never ready, that’s not a bad thing either.”

“I have to talk to him,” I muttered stubbornly. For myself, I needed to prove that I could stop running. Even though I knew it would hurt. “I _will_ talk to him. Just not now.”

She nodded. “You can hang out here as long as you need,” she said. “I shouldn’t be more than a few hours. Daphne and Astoria are at work, and Millie’s visiting her family for the next week or so,” she explained with a small smile. “I know how you can’t stand her.”

“Thank Merlin for small miracles,” I sighed. “Thank you, Pans.” I gave her the coordinates, refraining from telling her I loved her for staying by me even after everything. Even though we both knew it was true, admitting it would mean admitting something earthshaking had happened, and I didn’t want to do that.

“Never necessary,” Pansy dismissed my thanks with a wave of her hand. “Just order us curry takeaway and I’ll be yours forever.”

I chuckled, and with a small smile, she disapparated.

I let out a long breath and leaned back in my chair, feeling the tense muscles in my shoulders relax.

That went…surprisingly well.

 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Pansy came back three hours later. I know because she woke me up by flinging her purse from one side of the kitchen to the other, taking a frying pan and hitting the counter with it so hard it fell off its handle. The noise jolted me awake, sitting upright with my heart pounding out of my chest, the dredges of sleep making me confused and thinking someone had broken into my shithole flat in the muggle equivalent of Knockturn Alley.

“That son of a _bitch!_ ” she yelled, alongside numerous other unrepeatable expletives. “Fuck!”

I let out a held breath and sank back down. I was in Pansy’s flat. On Diagon. Heavily warded.

“What did he have to say?” I asked.

“He was pathetic,” she sneered, grabbing a bottle of whiskey and ignoring the cabinet full of glasses to come sit with me on the couch, her heels clacking loudly on the wood floor. “What a goddamn asshole.”

“As much as I love insulting him, I’d like to get some actual content.”

“Well, I screamed at him for a full forty minutes before he said much other than ‘Where’s Draco?’” She imitated him with that purposefully dumb voice she saved for either people she particularly thought low of or Goyle (who she also thought low of, but only because he’d made the mistake of drunkenly hitting on her once and it hadn’t gone well). “Then he kept trying to defend himself, saying that he never made you take a Vow. Granted, he did look rather shocked when I told him about that. He did tell me a bit of why he did it, though. Do you know about that ridiculous organization Lovegood is intent on taking down? Or her boss, or whoever. Though if you do, I suppose that will have also been under the Vow, hm?” she searched my face. I kept it blank.

“I can’t say anything, Pans.”

“Right, well I’m going to take that as an affirmative, then. The way he puts it, he hardly knew what was going on when you were in all that trouble months ago, only that Luna thought they were stalking you and she knew he was interested in you, so she figured he’d be interested in making sure you were safe for a little while. He kept saying he ‘didn’t mean for it to go this far’, but didn’t specify what he meant.”

I made a little thinking noise. Whether he meant that he didn’t mean to start a relationship with me while I was essentially trapped with him, or didn’t mean to lie to me for this long, or just plain didn’t mean for me to find out, I wasn’t sure. I wished I could be, but he took that away from me, too.

“I have an idea, though.” Pansy took a swig of whiskey and handed it towards me. I shook my head, and she took another instead.

“What idea would that be?”

“Do you want to be a little vindictive? Or do you just want nothing at all to do with any of this? It’s your choice.”  
I sighed. “You know I don’t want anything to do with _any_ of this—I just wanted a normal life, in my shitty apartment in muggle London alone and away from the world. And then I just wanted a bloody boyfriend, but Potter had to go and ruin it all, and now you _know_ I can’t get out of any of it, even if I wanted to. The world still hates me, and now the one opportunity I thought I might have had to get them to stop _also_ hates me. It’s going to make my life an absolute living _hell_ seeing him in all the papers and if he tries to come up and talk to me that’s going to be even worse and the media would have a field day and I’ll be the evil Death Eater again, so I really don’t have a choice, Pans.”

“Well, if you do want to do something, why don’t we just usurp this whole case out from under the goody Gryffindors?”

“Luna—Lovegood—” I took a breath. “She’s a Ravenclaw.”

“Whatever. They’re all the same.” Pansy waved the whiskey bottle vaguely.

“What do you mean, about the case?”

“Well, I figure there’s nobody I know who’s as good with Muggle technology as you. And this organization is all about Muggle tech, right? Using it to dominate the wizarding world, topple the government and all that horribly overdramatic nonsense that’s not going to actually happen? So, from what you’ve told me about this muggle web thing, wouldn’t it make sense that they used it to communicate?”

“Yes…” I didn’t like where she was heading with this.

“So then we could get in touch with them.”

“Why would we want to do that?”

“If they’re sending Aurors and Unspeakables at people they’re not even sure are involved like you, that means the Ministry really knows nothing about them. Nobody in the Ministry is thinking about using Muggle technology to find them, or if they are you know they’re going to have to jump through ten different sorts of hoops before anything gets done.”

“It’s not as simple as typing in their name and putting a tracking charm on it, Pans.”

“What about that interpersonal web thing you told me about? The Book of Faces, remember?”

“Facebook, Pans, it’s Facebook.” I shook my head, smiling a bit, even though this was really not the time for it. “They wouldn’t be stupid enough to be on Facebook.”

“Well, you have one, right? That Ryan guy at the diner made you get one so he could message you about the Galaxy Wars the muggles had back in the eighties.”

“Star Wars, and it’s fiction, not history. Yeah, I do. But I’m telling you, they aren’t that dumb, Pansy. They’re professional criminals.”

“You were too, when you were sixteen. I bet there’s a lot of them that are also sixteen, and just as dumb now as you were then. I bet you’d have a page in the Book of Faces if you were in that organization and in sixth year.”

I snorted. “I think you’re wrong.”

“Well, then, let’s find one of those Calculators and find out.”

“Computer. Calculator is specifically for maths.”

“Apparate me to the muggle library, darling,” she demanded, sticking out her arm.

“You can’t bring your whiskey there. Also, it’s night.”

“Who gives a damn? I bet the computers still work. And we can put disillusionment spells on ourselves so no one notices us. Come on, Draco, if we find a page we have an _in_!”

“And what do you propose we do with that in?

“Find them, of course, and then give them to someone powerful and honorable who would give us a reward for it. Like Shacklebolt. The Minister himself is a bloody Gryffindor. And if he doesn’t, I’ll publish everything I can about this bloody organization and make it public knowledge. I’m almost done with University, and then I’ll be a journalist, degree and everything.”

“That’s awfully optimistic of you.”

“Well, I can hash out the details of the plan once we get more information.” She set down her bottle of whiskey and tapped her foot impatiently, nails digging into the fabric of my sweater. “Now, let’s go.”

I sighed, but grabbed onto her arm. She may not have known exactly how to work Facebook, especially the part about needing to know a name to type into the search engine, but luckily I knew a name. And even though I was skeptical of this half-formed, harebrained scheme, I was also angry, tired, stuck and itching to do something.

If I had to be destructive, I thought, I might as well try to destroy something other than myself.

Besides, they couldn't be that obvious, being forthcoming about a secret organization online-they would never let their operatives be that stupid. Better to indulge Pansy than hear about missed opportunities for who knows how long. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays, friends! :)


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